Editor's Den

Raghul Patteri

Editor

Wetlands are important ecosystems that provide many crucial ecological functions for the sustenance of both wildlife as well as human populations. Alas, a vast majority of the world’s wetlands were already lost or severely degraded due to human interference by the time their importance was realised. About half of the human population depends on wetlands as their source of water and about half depend on wetland crops as their staple food – figures that put into perspective the importance that wetlands hold to us.

There are innumerable numbers of plants, birds, animals, insects, and amphibians that depend on wetlands for habitat, food, and survival. The impacts of wetland destruction on these organisms are still to be understood fully.

There are various species of waterbirds who depend on wetlands. Among them, the crowned beauties of Africa, the Grey crowned cranes are truly an enchanting species. These long-legged beauties are the dancing queens of the savannah wetlands with their beautiful feathers, crown, and captivating mating displays.

However, these birds too seem to have fallen prey to the impacts of destruction to habitat, and their population has reduced by half in the last three generations. This is an alarming trend as these birds are an important indicator species to the wetland quality.

In this edition of PT Aware, Dr. Peter Hudson walks you through the important aspects of wetland conservation, its impacts on the Grey crowned cranes, and their conservation efforts.

We thank all the gifted photographers who contributed the beautiful Grey crane images that you will enjoy in this edition. PT Aware is proud to associate with the Scientific and photographic community from all over the world to bring you breathtaking images side by side with the latest in scientific perspective.

Our next edition will focus on the Mountain Gorilla. So please prepare to upload your best images of these charismatic apes. Selected photographs will be published in the next edition.

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