India, Feb. 2 -- Archana Roy steps into the shallow water of the Haiderpur wetland every morning with a sickle in her hand and a cloth bag over her shoulder. I watch as she bends low, parts the floating leaves and pulls out a bunch of tender greens.

"This is helencha shak," she tells me, holding it up. "My mother cooked this. Now I cook it for my children."

She is not here to watch birds or admire the landscape. She is here for food.

Archana lives in Nawalpur village near Haiderpur wetland in Uttar Pradesh. Though her family grows rice and wheat, much of their food comes free from the wetland. For her, it is not an ecosystem, it is her kitchen.

Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, has one of the country's richest wetland networ...