TURTLES CLEANING GANGA
WHY IN NEWS ?
- Recently, in Varanasi, turtles are helping cleaning the Ganga.
MORE ABOUT THE NEWS:
- Under the Namami Gange Programme, large scale human efforts have been undertaken since 2014 to clean the Ganga and rejuvenate the nearly 2,600km river network.
- In this, marine life, especially turtles, has been playing a key role as well.
- Since 2017, the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and the Ministry of Forest and National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) have been running the turtle breeding and rehabilitation centre in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi.
- About a dozen of the 29 turtle species in India, both herbivorous and carnivorous, help by clearing rotten or half burnt human bodies as well as flowers dumped into the river.
- 5,000 turtles have been released since 2017.
- This year, 1,000 more will be released to strengthen the programme.
- In 2014, the centre got renewed attention after the Central government enlisted it in the Namami Gange Programme.
HOW DO TURTLES CLEAN GANGA ?
- The quality of water in Ganga has improved and the turtles have a role as they feed on meat and waste products thrown in the river.
- Improvements in biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), fecal coliform (FC) and dissolved oxygen (DO) levels were seen during river water quality checks.
SYLLABUS: PRELIMS, ENVIRONMENT
