Parandur Airport Dropped: Why It Matters for Vedanthangal, Karikili and Tamil Nadu's Ramsar Wetlands
The Tamil Nadu government has dropped the Parandur greenfield airport project (a brand new airport on open land), which was planned as Chennai's second airport in Kancheepuram district. The Chief Minister announced the decision in the state Assembly on 24 August 2026 and said a new site would be found.
The project was proposed in 2022. It faced about 1,000 days of protests from farmers of Ekanapuram and nearby villages, over loss of farmland, homes and livelihoods.
Environmental groups had warned that a large part of the land marked for the airport was wetland: lakes, irrigation tanks and the channels that feed them.
Dropping the project avoids habitat loss and fragmentation (breaking a large natural area into small, cut-off pieces) in a landscape that supports the Vedanthangal and Karikili bird sanctuaries, both Ramsar sites, and the wider route used by migratory birds.
The decision shows a choice of protecting wetlands and biodiversity over a large infrastructure project at that specific site.
Ramsar Convention and Wetland Protection
The Ramsar Convention is an international treaty to protect wetlands and use them wisely. It was signed in 1971 in Ramsar, Iran, and is the oldest of the modern global environmental treaties. Countries that join it list their most important wetlands as "Wetlands of International Importance", called Ramsar sites. A Ramsar site does not get automatic legal protection under Indian law; it is a promise to the world to look after that wetland.
Vedanthangal and Karikili are Ramsar sites, so India has promised the world to keep their ecological character. Their birds depend on many smaller lakes and tanks around them for feeding. Dropping a huge airport in this wetland landscape helps keep that promise.
Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuary
Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuary is a small lake sanctuary in the Madurantakam taluk of Chengalpattu district, Tamil Nadu, south-west of Chennai. It is often described as one of the oldest water bird sanctuaries in India. Every year, tens of thousands of water birds come here to nest and spend the winter. It is protected under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, and is also a Ramsar site.
Birds from Vedanthangal and Karikili feed in the lakes and tanks across the wider Kancheepuram and Chengalpattu landscape. A huge airport on wetland land in this region would have cut into those feeding grounds. Dropping the Parandur project protects that wider network.
Central Asian Flyway (CAF)
The Central Asian Flyway (CAF) is a huge "air highway" used by migratory birds to travel between their breeding grounds in the north and their wintering grounds in the south. It covers a large part of Eurasia between the Arctic Ocean and the Indian Ocean, across about 30 countries of North, Central and South Asia and the Trans-Caucasus. Most of India lies on this flyway. Every winter, millions of ducks, cranes, waders and other birds fly down it into Indian wetlands like Vedanthangal.
The Vedanthangal and Karikili wetlands are wintering grounds for birds that travel down the Central Asian Flyway. Losing a large stretch of wetlands near them to an airport would have weakened one of the flyway's southern resting points. Dropping the Parandur project helps protect India's role as a safe winter home on this flyway.
- Parandur greenfield airport (Kancheepuram district): proposed in 2022; dropped by the Tamil Nadu government on 24 August 2026
- Farmers of Ekanapuram and nearby villages protested for about 1,000 days
- Vedanthangal (Ramsar no. 2477) and Karikili (Ramsar no. 2480, about 58 ha) designated Ramsar sites on 8 April 2022
- Vedanthangal: declared a bird sanctuary in 1936; more than 40,000 birds each season
- Tamil Nadu has the most Ramsar sites in India (20); India has about 103 (as of October 2026)
- Central Asian Flyway: about 30 countries; 182 migratory waterbird species