The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands

World Wetlands Day 2007 - index page

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 2006, the Convention’s Web site has posted reports from more than 90 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.

World Wetlands Day 2007

Reports of World Wetlands Day 2007 activities

Here is what the Ramsar Secretariat is offering the Wetland Celebrants for
February 2007

Message du Secrétariat	A WWD 2007 Message suitable for quoting (or framing)	Mensaje de la Secretaría
Aux organisateurs	To WWD Event Organizers	A los organizadores
Affiche 3,7MB	Poster 3.6MB	Cartel 3,8MB
Autocollant 370KB	Sticker 370KB	Pegatina 370KB
[Aussi disponible en français]	A 16-page leaflet on fisheries and the Ramsar Convention, produced in conjunction with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Sea Around Us Project This is the 1.8MB low-resolution version; for the 16MB high-res version, please contact wwd@ramsar.org.	[Disponible también en español]
Une animation sur le Web que vous pourrez consulter en ligne ou télécharger et utiliser pour animer vos activités de JMZ. 9MB .EXE file 8MB .SWF Flash	A web animation that you can simply enjoy online or download and use to animate your WWD event. 9MB .EXE file 8MB .SWF Flash	Una animación para la web que pueden visionar en línea o bien descargar y utilizar para animar los actos que organicen el Día Mundial de los Humedales. 9MB .EXE file 8MB .SWF Flash
	A fun-for-all do-it-yourself paper fish (above). The fish has been produced in a variety of colours with one in black and white for colouring. Each fish is on one A4 sheet of paper ready to cut out and paste together. Children can produce their own fish and hang them up as part of an underwater scene or take them home with them.
Mode d'emploi	How-To sheet	Instrucciones
Individual Fish (PDF, ca. 250KB): autumn, blue and yellow, bronze, chrome, night, rainbow, standard, starry, teal, zebra, fish to color yourself (all seven fish in one ZIP file, 2.7MB)

How to order WWD posters and stickers

For those residing in Africa or Central or South America, please request your World Wetlands Day materials from the Secretariat by writing to us at wwd@ramsar.org, specifying your postal address.

For those residing in Asia, Europe, or North America, the Ramsar Administrative Authorities in your countries will be sending out this year's materials automatically based on the mailing lists from previous years. The list of participating Administrative Authorities is available here. For those who have never received World Wetlands Day materials in the past, however, we ask you to contact us directly, wwd@ramsar.org, again not forgetting to include your postal address.

Please note that the Secretariat must receive your request by 15 January 2007 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 delivery except for very special reasons.

Electronic formats

Those receiving WWD materials will receive the poster and stickers in hard copy. Included in the package will also be a CD-ROM with electronic versions of the posters and stickers, the Fish for Tomorrow leaflet, and the Do-it-yourself fish, all in non-editable Adobe PDF formats. The Web animation will be included in several non-editable formats: as a Flash executable file; as a Flash SWF file that can be played through your browser, and in a MAC-compatible file.

For those who wish to adapt the poster or stickers to their own languages and imagery, we will also provide, on request, the following two CD-ROMs:

CD 1 will include:
Poster and Sticker as TIFF files and as QuarkXPress Passport 6.5 oro files.

CD2 will include:
Fish for Tomorrow leaflet: Adobe InDesign CS2 4.0
Do-it-yourself fish: Photoshop CS2 9.0 and InDesign CS2 4.0
Web animation: Macromedia Flash Professional 8.0

IMPORTANT CAUTION ON CUSTOMISING WWD MATERIALS

The Ramsar Secretariat encourages the translation of our materials into national and local languages and the editing of materials to include a national/local perspective. Please note, however:

(i) The images in all of our materials cannot be used for any other purpose without the permission of the credited photographers.

(ii) The music used in the animation has been made available to us under a commissioning agreement with Kerr Music. This music may not be altered or used for any other purpose without the agreement of Kerr Music (further information available from the Ramsar Secretariat).

Our materials may only be used for non-commercial purposes.

Examples of the translation and local adaptation of Ramsar materials:

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.

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 21 June 2006, updated 19 April 2007, Dwight Peck and Sandra Hails, Ramsar.