BANGALORE Dec. 11. Aquatic sanctuaries and protection of wetlands may soon become vital to save endangered fish species and their ecosystems, particularly in the Northeast, where they form the main source of livelihood, an Assam (Central) University academic has said.

Lake Sonai in Assam (beel, as it is called in Assamese), like many wetland ecosystems in India, is gasping for breath and, if this is not alarming enough, the university's Head of Life Sciences Department, Devashish Kar, says that fish production in the "beel," and indeed many riverine systems in the Northeast is dropping at an alarming rate. Many fish species such as catla, carp, and rohu are on the verge of extinction due to loss of habitat and breeding grounds.Dr. Kar, who is attending the Lakes 2002 symposium on conservation, restoration, and management of aquatic ecosystems here, says that Sonai, which covered an area of 3458.12 hectares when in spate, was known to produce over 2,000 tonnes of fish a few decades ago. Now, when the waters are in spate, only 409.2 hectares are covered, and the fish production has dropped to 353 tonnes annually.

Dr. Kar has been studying the causes of the dreaded fish disease, epizootic ulcerative syndrome, (EUS) in fishes, as part of a Department of Science and Technology project since 1988. He has also been studying wetlands and rivers of the Barak Valley in Assam, and is working on a World Bank-aided project on germplasm inventory evaluation in the rivers of Mizoram and Tripura. In the river Jatinga, three species of mahaseer, including the "Tor Progenius", are highly endangered, Dr. Kar says. His studies revealed that the EUS originated in Australia in 1972, swept all the way through the Far-East Asian countries, and entered India in the Bark Valley region. The disease, he says, is not due to organic pollution of waters, and soil, or heavy metal contamination and bacterial presence. However, the diseases of fishes have been found to be harmless to human beings, which means that fishing as an economic activity is what matters here, and any measures to rid the rivers of the disease would mean increase in production.

Therefore, the need for aquatic sanctuaries and a protection programme, he said. Dr. Kar is President of an NGO called Conservation Forum in Silchar. The forum engages in exploring the biodiversity of North-East India, and in their conservation and management. The forum also publishes "Conservation Forum Journal".