Climate change as a driving force for the wetlands of the Northeast Region pales beside the pressures of human exploitation, at least in the near term. Over longer periods, a century and more, climate change will likely be an important factor. Improved wetland management is highly congruent with the national development strategy, despite the perception that 'conservation' is an 'anti-development luxury'. Table 5.1 illustrates the congruence between national strategy and the wetland management improvements. The last wetland value listed is key.
Government policy targets the hard-core poor.
Wetlands, which provide vital benefits to this group, should be explicitly incorporated as an element of strategy to reach this target, for rural poor with access to wetland areas. Until wetlands are understood to be valuable and important, and lines of communication are open between interested parties, it will be difficult to address the rest of the issues discussed here. Wetland values need to be incorporated into development planning. Wetland benefits need to be recognized and factored into development planning, to reduce environmental damage through appropriate mitigation, and to prevent falsely optimistic estimates of project returns by including losses of wetland value due to projects in project economic assessments. The result should be the best use of each wetland site.