What's New @ RamsarMaterials available for World Wetlands Day 2004
What
is World Wetlands Day? 2
February each year is World Wetlands Day. It marks the date of
the signing of the Convention on Wetlands on 2 February 1971, in the Iranian city
of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea. WWD was celebrated
for the first time in 1997 and made an encouraging beginning. Each year, 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 2003, the Convention’s Web site has posted reports from more than 80 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.
From
the Mountains to the Sea
Wetlands at Work for Us
World Wetlands Day takes place on 2 February every year, and traditionally the Ramsar Bureau provides materials for the use of everyone who will be organizing WWD activities of their own. New materials for 2004, obtainable free of charge from the Ramsar Bureau, include a poster on the theme of "From the mountains to the sea -- Wetlands at work for us", a new 3-fold leaflet "Working for Wetlands", and a new sticker.
Our poster traces wetlands from the mountains to the sea, with beautiful water colours of ten Ramsar sites from all six Ramsar regions, covering a broad range of wetland types, and identifying the multiple goods and services each site provides. Its focus is on their beauty, diversity and utility - storing and purifying freshwater; controlling floods; replenishing groundwater supplies; stabilising the shoreline; protecting against storms; acting as nurseries for freshwater or marine fish; providing us with food, water, a place for recreation and education, a transport medium - wetlands work for us in many ways. Available in English, Français, or Español.
|
A 3-ply foldout
that explains
|
Working for Wetlands leaflet how
we
can work
to maintain the health of our wetlands |
. . . and so ensure that they continue to work for us. |
Our leaflet takes a different view - Working for Wetlands provides a focus on some Ramsar-related success stories in wetland management. It takes a brief look at how sustainable management can ensure that our wetlands stay healthy and continue to work for us. Intended primarily for you, the organisers of WWD events, we're sure that some of your target audiences for WWD will appreciate it, too. Available in English, Français, or Español.
Some promotional items to help you with your activities are still available from previous years as well, and can be found listed on the WWD 2004 index page.
We'd like to encourage everyone to consider printing the poster, leaflet, and sticker in his or her own country if large numbers are required, and to consider producing these materials in national or local languages so that they can reach out to a larger audience. To assist in this, the Bureau is also making the materials available on CD-ROM as Quark Xpress files - this allows users with the appropriate software to print their own, customised copies of the materials. (See earlier examples here.) Please check with your designer/publisher that they can work with this software before asking us to send the CDs.
The
WWD 2004 sticker
Available in English,
Français, or Español.
Please note:
We must receive your request for materials by 15 January at the very latest, and much earlier if you know that mail delivery from Switzerland takes a long time. Note, too, that due to budgetary restrictions we CANNOT send materials by express post except for very special reasons.
If you would like further copies of our materials or would like the Quark Xpress files on CD-ROM, please e-mail Valerie Higgins at higgins@ramsar.org now - and don't forget to include your full mailing address!
Finally, please tell us what you did on WWD for our reports section - last year's are at available here - we always do our best to include all the reports we receive. Photos, text and sample materials are all welcome (if possible, send photos as separate images, not embedded in Word files). Contact ramsar@ramsar.org.
All of these excellent products
for World Wetlands Day have been financially supported by the Evian Project
funded by the Danone Group.
For
further information about World Wetlands Day or the Convention on Wetlands,
please contact the Ramsar Convention Secretariat, Rue Mauverney 28, CH-1196
Gland, Switzerland (tel +41 22 999 0170, fax +41 22 999 0169, e-mail ramsar@ramsar.org).
Posted 31 October 2003, Dwight Peck and Sandra Hails, Ramsar.
