Each year,
2 February is World Wetlands Day (WWD). 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 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 2004, 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. Government agencies and private citizens from all over the world have sent us their news, often with photographs, and these annual summaries and 600+ individual reports, with more than 900 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.
Surf to http://www.ramsar.org/wwd2005_index.htm for more information and for promotional materials.
source: www.ramsar.org