The 2nd of 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.
The Ramsar Convention now includes 160 contracting parties and 1,910 Wetlands of International Importance with a total surface area of more than 186 million hectares and home to countless waterbirds. World Wetlands Day was celebrated for the first time in 1997 and made an encouraging beginning. World Wetlands Day 2011 marks the 40th Anniversary of the Ramsar Convention with the launch of ‘Ramsar’s liquid assets’ book.
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 2010, the Convention’s Web site has posted reports from more than 98 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. Some of these can be seen at the Ramsar website.
Events that were organized as part of WWD can be viewed at The Ramsar Website .