India has added Tso Kar Wetland Complex in Ladakh as its 42nd Ramsar site, which is a second one in the Union Territory of Ladakh. In a tweet, Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Prakash Javadekar said, the complex is a notable example of two connected lakes, the freshwater Startsapuk Tso and the hypersaline Tso Kar. <br />''<br />''The aim of the Ramsar list is to develop and maintain an international network of wetlands which are important for the conservation of global biological diversity and for sustaining human life through the maintenance of their ecosystem components, processes and benefits.<br />'' <br />''<span style="color: #222222;">The Tso Kar Basin is a high-altitude wetland complex, consisting of two principal waterbodies, Startsapuk Tso, a freshwater lake of about 438 hectares to the south, and Tso Kar itself, a hypersaline lake of 1800 hectares to the north, situated in the Changthang region of Ladakh. <br />''<br />''The Tso Kar Basin is an A1 Category Important Bird Area as per Bird Life International and a key staging site in the Central Asian Flyway. The site is also one of the most important breeding areas of the Black-necked Crane in India.</span><br />