The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands

World Wetlands Day 2006 in Kenya

REPORT FOR THE WORLD WETLAND DAY CELEBRATIONS HELD ON 2ND FEBRUARY 2006

This year, The Laikipia Wildlife Forum (Kenya) for the first time marked the WWD with celebrations in Rumuruti Swamp, one of the very important wetlands in Laikipia District. The swamp is a beehive of several activities as, source of water for drinking and irrigation, fish keeping, tree nursery, source of papyrus for making mats and a home of variety of birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals.

The function was attended by more than 500 individuals comprising of 10 schools, government representatives, Non-Governmental institutions and community. It was marked with Videos on wetland conservation and their benefits, skits and poems from schools and drama from the community. The objectives were:

a) to involve the students and communities in the campaign on wetland conservation

b) to give an opportunity to students and communities to realize the benefits of wetland conservation and how it can contribute to poverty alleviation.

c) to make the schools and communities be responsible for all the resources we have in general for posterity.

Though we were late to request you for posters and other materials to use during the WWD, we were able to come up with some posters and we are very happy to report that the day was very successful. We look forward to sharing more information on wetland and if there are materials that you feel may be useful for the environmental education programme, please do not hesitate to contact us. I encourage you to visit the Laikipia Wildlife Forum website at www.laikipia.org to learn more of the activities we are involved with.

Please see the attached photos for WWD celebrations.

Thank you, Yours,

Ephantus Mugendi Mugo
Environmental Education Officer
Laikipia Wildlife Forum
P.O Box 764, 10400
Tel/Fax: 062- 31600
Email: education@laikipia.org
Website: www.laikipia.org

Preparations for World Wetlands Day

Ephantus gives a lecture on WWD

A skit about wetlands

Fish harvested from Rumuruti swamp

Students at the Rumuruti swamp

Students at the Rumuruti swamp

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 ). Posted 17 February 2006, Dwight Peck, Ramsar.