World Wetlands Day, 2 February
What is World Wetlands Day?
2 February each year is World Wetlands Day. It marks the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on 2 February 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Each year since 1997, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and groups of citizens at all levels of the community have taken advantage of the opportunity to undertake actions aimed at raising public awareness of wetland values and benefits in general and the Ramsar Convention in particular.
From 1997 to 2007, the Convention’s Web site has posted reports from more than 95 countries of WWD activities of all sizes and shapes, from lectures and seminars, nature walks, children’s art contests, sampan races, and community clean-up days, to radio and television interviews and letters to newspapers, to the launch of new wetland policies, new Ramsar sites, and new programmes at the national level. Government agencies and private citizens from all over the world have sent us their news, often with photographs, and these annual summaries and 900+ individual reports, with more than 1200 images, make an excellent archive of ideas for future celebrations.
On World Wetlands Day 2010, Anada Tiéga, Secretary General, Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, was interviewed by Inter Press Service. Listen to the interview.
And each year since 1997, the Ramsar Secretariat, with generous financial assistance from the private sector Danone Group, has offered a new selection of posters, stickers, videos, pocket calendars, leaflets and information packs free of charge and has suggested a unifying theme for the benefit of those who wish to use it. Here is a general guide to both the annual WWD index pages and the reports of each year's activities.
Since its inception, the production and distribution of materials for World Wetlands Day have been financially supported by the Evian Project funded by the Danone Group.
World Wetlands Day materials
Click here to see local, national and international adaptation
Assessment of World Wetlands Day, report by Meg Gawler, 2009 (PDF)
