Nachfolgend werden geringfügig gekürzte und veränderte Meldungen der Ramsar Convention zum Welttag der Feuchtgebiete dokumentiert.
World Wetlands Day 2009
Upstream – Downstream
Wetlands connect us all
Our suggested theme for this year is river basins and their management. We all live in a river basin (or drainage basin, catchment, watershed, etc.), and most of the people reading this are well aware of the challenges of managing it – and particularly the challenge of making sure that the basin planners think of wetlands and not just water in their planning.
We hope that WWD this year, 2 February 2009 or thereabouts, will be an opportunity for people to look around at their own wetland and its interconnections with the environment around it – how the wetland benefits the surroundings and, of course, how activities throughout the river basin may affect their wetland.
Our suggested slogan for this year – “Upstream – Downstream” – captures this sense of how interconnected we all are within the river basin, how we can be impacted by the activities of those upstream of us and how our activities affect those downstream.
The Convention has put a great deal of energy over many years into providing guidance on managing river basins because it is such a vital issue: good site management can be quickly negated by bad decisions on managing water at the basin level. While wetland managers need to engage at all levels with the water managers, the basin level is probably the most challenging.
There is another dimension to consider, too, and that is raising the awareness of all people about their river basins. It’s not just about planners, it’s also about users, and we are all users of water in river basins. Whoever we are – farmer, fisher, factory owner, or family – our activities have an impact on the basin in which we live, so ensuring that we can bring about a better understanding of how a river basin functions, of the impact of the users – and the abusers – and the challenges of good management, is our key focus for World Wetlands Day 2009.
And it’s not just a focus for WWD – at the upcoming Ramsar COP10 in October 2008, an important draft Resolution to be debated will be the Convention’s consolidated guidance on wetlands and river basin management.
So what will the Secretariat be producing this year for you, our WWD collaborators?
As usual:
A WWD poster
WWD stickers
A do-it-yourself surprise for young people (we’ve done fish, turtles – what’s next?)
As well as:
10 things about river basins that everyone should know – briefing notes on the theme
A short animation on the theme
20 questions on river basins for young people
And maybe more …
10 things we all need to know about river basins
These are intended to ‘set the scene’ for WWD event organizers, getting us all on the same page and perhaps generating some ideas of what you might decide to focus on at your WWD celebration. The thematic areas identified below will not be covered in great detail, and technical jargon will be kept to a minimum!
1. Wetlands, freshwater and river basins
An introductory section that identifies freshwater as the critical resource upon which all life depends and reminds us that it is wetlands that capture and deliver water to all of us – thus, wetlands are critical too in considering river basins.
2. What’s a river basin?
Everyone lives in a river basin – it’s part of our ecological address. But what is a basin? This section will define what we mean.
3. Upstream-downstream: we’re all connected
We can change what happens in our river basin, for better or worse, by what we do to the basin’s natural resources. Our behaviour can have an impact on the soil, water, air, plants and animals. And whatever we do will eventually have an effect downstream (and sometimes an effect upstream!).
4. Wetlands: their ecological and hydrological functions
Getting down to basics. Showcasing wetlands and their diverse roles in river basins, this section will look briefly at the hydrological and ecological functions of wetlands within river basins.
5. Who’s in control?
Who decides how your river basin is managed? This section will look at river basin management, briefly considering Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) and Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) as common approaches to this management challenge.
6. Getting involved
Successful basin management depends on broad stakeholder involvement. What is a stakeholder? Are you a stakeholder? How can stakeholders play a role in managing water and wetlands?
7. Water scarcity
We hear about water scarcity all the time now. So what does it mean on different continents, in different countries. What causes it? What can we do about it? Can IRBM help?
8. Urban living impacts
Urban dwellers place heavy demands on river basins – they need water, they produce wastes, their buildings and roads create huge areas that are impervious to water, and all of this has an impact on the quality of the freshwater and the biodiversity it supports downstream.
9. Transboundary issues
Transboundary wetland systems pose special problems for managers. There are at least 261 basins that cross national boundaries – so the challenge is big, and it’s global.
10. Major threats in basins
Many activities threaten river basins. Six have been identified by some experts as the most important based on their known impact: dams and infrastructure, excessive water extraction, climate change, invasive species, over-fishing, and pollution.
Was ist die Ramsar-Konvention?
The Convention on Wetlands, signed in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971, is an intergovernmental treaty which provides the framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources. There are presently 158 Contracting Parties to the Convention, with 1831 wetland sites, totaling 170 million hectares, designated for inclusion in the Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance.
Was ist der Welttag der Feuchtgebiete?
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.
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.