Newsletter / Blog
2012-02-04 World Wetlands Day occurs on February 2, every year – Caribbean Wetland experience 2012.
World
Wetlands Day marks the date
of the signing of the Convention on Wetlands, called the Ramsar Convention 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 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.
On February 2010 World Wetlands day held in Korea under the Ramsar support.
The 2012 World
Wetlands Day theme is “Wetlands and Tourism” and BirdLife Partners in the Caribbean are ready to be part of the experience.
Bahamas
The Bahamas National Trust - BirdLife in the Bahamas - is
showcasing the Harrold and Wilson Ponds National Park (HWNP) to tourists in
celebration of these very important ecosystems. The tourists from a cruise ship
in port will be taken to this Important Bird Area for a guided tour by Bahamas
National Trust (BNT) staff and then visit the Ardastra Gardens
and Zoo for the Flamingo show.
Dominican
Republic
Grupo Jaragua - BirdLife
in Dominican Republic - has
also organized fun filled-activities to celebrate WWD, in this case mainly
directed at youth (ages 12-18) from the local communities of Oviedo and El Cajuil. The youth will have the
opportunity to visit laguna de Oviedo
in Jaragua National Park IBA, learn about mangroves and about the importance of
brackish wetland ecosystems for people and biodiversity. They will also have a
chance to learn about Grupo Jaragua Project – The Mangroves of Laguna de Oviedo
and take a first-hand look at one of the existing mangrove plots from this
project. After the field trip, participants will be “treated” with two
presentations on “Wetlands and Ramsar sites” and “Mangroves and their
ecotourism value”. Another programmed WWD activity is a poster exposition,
opened to the public at a college in the country capital. The expo will be a
joint activity between Grupo Jaragua and a college student association.
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