Every year on 2^nd February, World Wetlands Day is celebrated to raise global awareness of the vital role of wetlands in maintaining the planet’s delicate ecosystems and the communities that depend on them. This year is particularly special – marking exactly 50 years since the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands in 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the Caspian Sea.

What is the Ramsar Convention?

The Ramsar Convention is an intergovernmental treaty that provides the framework for the conservation and cooperation around sustainable governance of wetlands and their resources. 90% of UN Member states across the world are a part of the Convention. Ramsar sites, or Wetlands of International Importance, are protected areas that are recognized as being of significant value not only for the country of their origin, but for the planet’s ecosystem health and biodiversity.

There are currently over 2,400 Ramsar Sites around the world, covering 2.5 million km.²

 Through designating a wetland as a Ramsar site, national governments demonstrate their commitment to take the necessary steps to safeguard the sites ecological integrity. International cooperation and national commitment to sustainable management of wetland areas can make a big difference.

For example, in Lake Chilika – the first designated Ramsar site in India – an ecological restoration program founded on participatory basin management has led to rapid recovery of wetland resources and aquatic biodiversity. Notably, there has been an increase in the number of critically endangered Irrawaddy dolphins, from only 89 in 2003, to 158 in 2014.[1]

 What is ICEM doing to protect wetlands?

Despite growing international action to protect the wetland sites, the vision of the Ramsar convention faces new and complex challenges from the impacts of a changing climate. Managing the […]