World Wetlands Day 2009 -- France
Support through the Ramsar Danone-Evian partnership helps to raise awareness in France
For the second consecutive year, the Danone-Evian Fund for Water is helping the French NGO LPO (Ligue de Protection des Oiseaux) to organize about 40 free animations in the field and to edit a brochure (below) about wetlands’ importance, in support of the Ramsar World Wetland Day.
The LPO’s president explained the importance of such a day and of developing activities in order to make people aware of wetlands’ unique environment. In France, in one century, wetlands about three times the surface area of Corsica have disappeared. Wetlands are also of main importance for birds, as 50% of the French species are dependent on wetlands. In order to protect birds and prevent wetlands’ disappearance, the 
LPO bought a number of wetlands and helps to manage more than 130 sites.
The partnership Ramsar Danone-Evian helps the LPO to support World Wetlands Day in order to raise awareness through field visits and to inform the public about wetlands services and importance.
For example, animation with schools, observation of birds with specialists, movies and debates were amongst the possible activities to bring to life the WWD 09 theme of “Upstream Downstream, wetlands connect us all”.
