World Wetlands Day on February 2:

Wetlands - vital link between land and water

by Pramod de SILVA

This year has been designated as the International Year of Biodiversity. While we celebrate biodiversity, it is also important to focus on individual units that make up our ecosystem. Wetlands are an important aspect of our ecosystem and biodiversity. This year, the World Wetlands Day that falls on February 2 will give us an opportunity to focus on their contribution to biodiversity.

Just what are wetlands? They are areas of land where water covers the soil - all year or just at certain times of the year. They include: swamps, marshes, lakes, lagoons, saltmarshes, mudflats, mangroves, coral reefs, bogs, fens, and peatlands.

Wetlands may be natural or artificial and the water within a wetland may be static or flowing, fresh, brackish or saline. There are underground wetlands as well. Wetlands are the vital link between land and water.

But why are wetlands important? Wetlands are a critical part of our natural environment. They protect shores from wave action, reduce the impacts of floods, absorb pollutants and improve water quality.

They provide habitat for animals and plants and many contain a wide diversity of life. Wetlands provide an important range of environmental, social and economic services.

Many wetlands are areas of great natural beauty as well. The Wetlands Day is an appropriate time to look at wetland biodiversity as well as its role in wetland health. Equally important is how we are managing wetlands so that we sustain the healthy functioning of wetland ecosystems, including wetland species as well as the non-living components of wetlands upon which species depend - water and nutrients.

This year, the theme for the World Wetlands Day is "Wetlands, Biodiversity, and Climate Change." Another version of this theme is "Caring for wetlands - the answer to climate change." The three factors are inter-linked and each cannot be considered in isolation. Climate change is one of the most discussed issues in the world, its effect includes global warming, glacial retreat, water level rise and erratic precipitation rates.

Wetlands have helped a lot in alleviating the problem, even though wetlands only occupy 6 to 8% of the Earth's total surface area. Wetlands can reduce the impact of climate change through the following ways:

Marshes, floodplains and lakes can temporarily store water and reduce peak flood flows in periods of extreme rainfall; Mangrove forest, delta ecosystems or coral reefs form natural buffers against storms or salt water intrusion; Wetlands store and release water slowly, it is particularly important during drought or insufficient rainfall; Wetlands provide nurseries for coastal fisheries. Wetlands provide sources of fish, food and building materials.

Wetlands store carbon within plant communities and soil. They slow down carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere, this helps to moderate climate conditions. Thus the loss of wetlands can increase the impact of climate change.

But why February 2? It marks the date of the signing of the Convention on Wetlands on February 2, 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea. However, it was celebrated as the World Wetlands Day (WWD) for the first time only in 1997.

On this day, government agencies, non-governmental organisations, 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 benefits in general and the Ramsar Convention in particular.

The Ramsar Convention is of particular significance. The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, called the Ramsar Convention, is an intergovernmental treaty that provides the framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and "wise use" of wetlands and their resources.

The wise use of wetlands is defined as "the maintenance of their ecological character, achieved through the implementation of ecosystem approaches, within the context of sustainable development". Wise use therefore has at its heart the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands and their resources, for the benefit of humankind.

Negotiated through the 1960s by countries and non-governmental organisations that were concerned at the increasing loss and degradation of wetland habitat for migratory waterbirds, the treaty was adopted in the Iranian city of Ramsar in 1971 and came into force in 1975.

It is the only global environmental treaty that deals with a particular ecosystem, and the Convention's member countries cover all geographic regions of the planet.

The Convention's mission is "the conservation and wise use of all wetlands through local and national actions and international cooperation, as a contribution towards achieving sustainable development throughout the world".

One hundred and fifty nine countries have ratified the Convention while 1,886 sites worldwide are in the List of Wetlands of International Importance. The total surface area of the designated sites is 185,156,612 hectares.

Sri Lanka has three Ramsar sites - the Anaiwilundawa Tanks sanctuary in the North Western Province, Bundala and Maduganga, totalling 8,522 hectares.

There are many other sites in Sri Lanka worthy of inclusion in the Ramsar List and hopefully they will be included as the list expands.

Sri Lankans should strive to protect these sites from commercial exploitation and destruction.

Protecting wetlands should not be confined to WWD, it should be an year-round effort on a worldwide scale. The rapid pace of climate change should be an eye-opener for all vis-a-vis preserving wetlands.

Their importance should not be under-estimated. Governments, environmental groups and individuals should play an active role in preserving them for posterity - and for the future well-being of our planet.