Wetlands constitute the most productive ecosystems with a wide array of goods and services. These ecosystems serve as life support systems and as habitats for various organisms, including migratory birds for food and shelter. They aid in bioremediation and are hence aptly known as ‘kidneys of the landscape’. Major services include flood control, wastewater treatment, arresting sediment load, drinking water, protein production, and more importantly recharging of aquifers apart from aiding as sinks and climate stabilizers. The wetlands provide a low-cost way to treat the community’s wastewater, while simultaneously functioning as a wild fauna sanctuary, with public access. Due to their rich biodiversity, these ecosystems are valuable for education and scientific endeavours. However, the post-industrialization and globalization era witnessed a spurt in unplanned developmental activities with senseless urbanisation leading to the degradation and decline of fragile ecosystems. This necessitates the conservation of vital ecosystems through sustainable management tenets, which requires an understanding of the livelihood support of ecosystems. Hence, there is a pressing need to carry out the valuation of the ecosystem services, especially intangible benefits, provided by ecosystems. The value of all ecosystem services, including the degradation costs, and implications of climate change needs to be understood for developing appropriate policies toward the conservation and sustainable use and management of ecosystems. Regional and national accounts need to include measures of resource depletion or their degradation in a measure of the current economic well-being of a population. The existing GDP growth percentages used as yardsticks to measure the development and well-being of citizens in decision-making processes are substantially misleading, as it is based on the market exchange of material well-being, will indicate resource depletion/degradation only through a positive gain in the economy and will not represent the decline in these assets (wealth) at all. Appraisal of ecosystem services (ES) allows for adjusted regional or national accounts which reflect the output of ecosystem services as well as the depletion of natural resources and the degradation costs (externalized costs of the loss of ecosystem services) of ecosystems in economic terms, which will help raise awareness and provide a quantitative tool to evaluate the sustainability of policies toward prudent management and conservation of fragile livelihood supporting ecosystems. The current issue of Sahyadri E News (Issue LXXIX) presents monetary valuation of ecosystem services, which can help in building a better understanding of their influence on well-being and can further facilitate information-driven decisions and policy reforms that align with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the wise use of natural resources. Prudent management of vital ecosystems aids in mitigating the threat of global warming as healthy ecosystems aid in mitigating changes in climate.

Environmental education is a critical component of today’s society, and is essential for responsible citizenship and the prevention of further environmental degradation. It is especially important for countries that are developing as rapidly as India, as much environmental destruction has accompanied this growth, and needs to be stopped. However, EE as a field requires reformation in India- premier educational institutions can help this process along by conducting grassroots-level programs with a sound scientific base for whole communities as well as students. Second article in this issue presents the need for  Environment Education at all levels to enhance environmental literacy   for environmentally sound development

The next article presents the Ichthyofauna spatial decision support system (ISDSS), focusing on ichthyofauna in the lakes of Bangalore. The ISDSS includes a total of 18 ichthyofauna species belonging to 14 genera, 4 orders, and 7 families. The ISDSS is an interactive, computerized, spatial decision support system with a repository of data pertaining to the quality of ecosystems and ichthyofauna diversity that assists the decision makers in the analysis and visualization of information towards strategic decision-making.

Fourth article presents a Microalgae Spatial Decision Support System (MSDSS) designed for assessing the status of wetlands, based on microalgal data. The SDSS is developed with the integration of spatial data through free and open source software such as Geoserver, PostgreSQL, GeoTools, and Openlayers, which aids in data analyses for assessing the quality of wetland ecosystems and microalgal biodiversity. A total of 101 genera of phytoplankton belonging to 5 phyla, 9 classes, 24 orders, and 41 families were recorded through monitoring of 115 lakes in Bangalore.

Sambhar Lake is a Ramsar site located in Rajasthan, and is home to rich diversity including numerous migratory birds The next article focusses on the assessment of the existing conditions of the lake and its catchment in the context of natural resources and richness of biodiversity based on field investigations, and literature reviews, pertaining to documentation of geographic and biological characteristics of the wetland, spatial characterisation of the lake and catchment,  spatio-temporal analysis of water spread and documentation of biodiversity, including total bird species, IUCN status of visiting birds, historic population patterns, migratory paths, factors affecting bird populations have also been analysed. Further, the study proposes recommendations and suggestions to maintain and improve the ecological health of the wetland and mitigate the potential contemporary as well as future anthropogenic damages.