Borjuli Wetland: the Wild Rice Site that Became a Biodiversity Heritage Site

In July 2026, a wetland in Sonitpur district of Assam joined a short list of places India protects by name for what they hold. Borjuli was notified as a Biodiversity Heritage Site so that one grass can keep growing there undisturbed: Oryza rufipogon, the wild ancestor of the rice that feeds more than half the country.

The news: a wetland gains heritage status

The National Biodiversity Authority notified the Borjuli Wild Rice Site in Sonitpur district as a Biodiversity Heritage Site in early July 2026, with the announcement made on 2 July. The site is a wetland complex where Oryza rufipogon grows naturally, and the notification gives that population formal protection against land-use change and disturbance.

The recognition follows a project titled 'In-situ Conservation and Management of Wild Rice (Oryza rufipogon) in Sonitpur District of Assam', which has run since 2022. It is funded by the National Rainfed Area Authority under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, and implemented by the ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Assam State Biodiversity Board. The project surveyed, collected and characterised wild rice germplasm before the site was put forward for heritage status.

Oryza rufipogon: the wild ancestor of rice

Oryza rufipogon, commonly called brownbeard rice, is a perennial wild grass that grows in wetlands and shallow water across Asia. Botanists regard it as the immediate wild ancestor of Oryza sativa, the Asian cultivated rice. Unlike the crop, it is cross-pollinating, which keeps its gene pool wide and varied.

Why breeders want it: wild rice carries traits the crop has lost or never had, resistance to pests and diseases, and tolerance to flooding, drought and salinity. As rainfall turns erratic and new pests spread, those traits are the raw material for breeding climate-resilient rice varieties. Losing a wild population is therefore not a sentimental loss; it is the loss of options for future food security.

What a Biodiversity Heritage Site is

A Biodiversity Heritage Site is an area of biodiversity importance notified by a State Government under Section 37 of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, in consultation with local bodies. The notification appears in the Official Gazette, and the State Government may frame rules for the management and conservation of the site.

The law lists what can qualify: unique and ecologically fragile ecosystems on land, coast, inland waters or sea, with rich biodiversity. The qualifying components include wild as well as domesticated species, high endemism, rare and threatened species, keystone species, species of evolutionary significance, and wild ancestors of cultivated species. Borjuli qualifies squarely on the last count.

A heritage site is not a national park or a sanctuary. Those are declared under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, and are managed by the forest department. A heritage site works through the biodiversity law's own institutions: the National Biodiversity Authority at the Centre, State Biodiversity Boards in the states, and Biodiversity Management Committees at the local body level. It can cover inhabited landscapes, sacred groves, lakes and wetlands that the protected-area network does not.

The heritage-site network in India

India had 54 Biodiversity Heritage Sites as of March 2026, according to the National Biodiversity Authority, spread across 16 states. The first was the Nallur Tamarind Grove in Bengaluru, Karnataka, notified in 2007. The pace has been slow, fewer than three sites a year on average over nearly two decades, which is why each new notification still makes news.

Borjuli adds a new kind of site to the list: one notified specifically for a crop wild relative. Assam's other heritage sites include Majuli, the river island. The Borjuli notification also shows the mechanism working as intended, with a central research institute, a state board and a funding authority converging on one wetland.

Why wild crop relatives matter

Conservation of crop wild relatives happens in two ways. Ex situ conservation stores seeds in genebanks, and India has one of the world's largest at the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources in New Delhi. In situ conservation protects the plant where it grows, so it keeps evolving with its pests, climate and soil. Borjuli is in situ conservation, and the two approaches back each other up.

The threats are ordinary and therefore dangerous: wetlands drained for farming or building, water diverted, invasive species moving in, and hybridisation with cultivated rice, which can dilute the wild gene pool. A heritage-site notification does not by itself stop any of these; it gives the site a legal identity, a management framework and a claim on funds, which is what makes protection enforceable.

Prelims practice