World Wetlands Day is celebrated annually on February 2. It aims to raise global awareness about the vital role of wetlands for people and the planet. This day also marks the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on February 2, 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar.

“Revive and restore degraded wetlands” is the theme for 2023 highlighting the importance of wetlands’ restoration, since well-restored wetlands can provide many of the services performed by the original natural wetland.

What are wetlands?

• Wetlands are ecosystems where water is the primary factor controlling the environment and the associated plant and animal life. 

• Wetlands are land areas that are saturated or flooded with water either permanently or seasonally. Inland wetlands include marshes, ponds, lakes, fens, rivers, floodplains and swamps. 

• Coastal wetlands include saltwater marshes, estuaries, mangroves, lagoons and even coral reefs. Fish ponds, rice paddies and saltpans are man-made wetlands.

• Wetlands provide a wide range of important resources and ecosystem services such as food, water, fibre, groundwater recharge, water purification, flood moderation, erosion control and climate regulation.

• They are, in fact, a major source of water and our main supply of freshwater comes from an array of wetlands which help soak rainfall and recharge groundwater.

• Though they cover only around 6 per cent of the Earth’s land surface, 40 per cent of all plant and animal species live or breed in wetlands. 

• Wetland biodiversity matters for our health, our food supply, for tourism and for jobs. Wetlands are vital for humans, for other ecosystems and for our climate, providing essential ecosystem services such as water regulation, including flood control and water purification. 

• More than a billion people across the world depend on wetlands for their livelihoods – that’s about one in eight people on Earth.

Wetlands are disappearing three times faster than forests

• Wetlands are among the ecosystems with the highest rates of decline, loss and degradation. Indicators of current negative trends in global biodiversity and ecosystem functions are projected to continue in response to direct and indirect drivers such as rapid human population growth, unsustainable production and consumption and associated technological development, as well as the adverse impacts of climate change.

• Wetlands are disappearing three times faster than forests and are Earth’s most threatened ecosystem. In just 50 years — since 1970 — 35 per cent of the world’s wetlands have been lost. 

• Depending on the amount of sea-level rise caused by the climate crisis, 20-90 per cent of current coastal wetlands, which sequester carbon up to 55 times faster than tropical rainforests, may be lost by the end of the century. Wetlands – important stopovers for migratory birds – have also lost more biodiversity than other terrestrial and marine ecosystems.

• Human activities that lead to loss of wetlands include drainage and infilling for agriculture and construction, pollution, overfishing and overexploitation of resources, invasive species and climate change.

• This vicious cycle of wetland loss, threatened livelihoods, and deepening poverty is the result of mistakenly seeing wetlands as wastelands rather than lifegiving sources of jobs, incomes, and essential ecosystem services. 

How do wetlands combat climate change?

• Wetlands are a natural solution to the era-defining global threat of climate change. They absorb carbon dioxide to help slow global heating and reduce pollution, hence have often been referred to as the “kidneys of the Earth”. 

• Peatlands, a particular type of vegetated wetland, alone store twice as much carbon as all the world's forests combined. But, when drained and destroyed, wetlands emit vast amounts of carbon.

• Wetlands also provide a buffer against the impacts of floods, droughts, hurricanes and tsunamis, and build resilience to climate change.

Drive to protect world’s wetlands gains momentum

• A November 2022 meeting of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands raised the profile of wetlands and their crucial role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, humanity’s blueprint for a better future.

• The following month at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, countries reached a landmark agreement to protect nature, a deal that included a provision to restore at least 30 per cent of degraded inland water bodies and conserve healthy freshwater ecosystems in an equitable way.

• Countries around the world are now beginning to restore their wetlands. Examples of wetland conservation initiatives include the development of “emerging sponge cities” in China, and the government-backed restoration of the United Kingdom’s Great North Bog, a significant area for both carbon and water storage.

• Research shows that accelerated efforts to conserve and restore wetlands are crucial as the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss and pollution and waste is amplifying the effects of wetland degradation.

What is the Ramsar Convention?

• The Ramsar Convention is an international treaty signed by 172 countries to protect wetlands. It is named after the city in Iran where it was signed, and it began with 18 countries in 1971.

• The convention is one of the oldest inter-governmental accords for preserving the ecological character of wetlands. Also known as the Convention on Wetlands, it aims to develop a global network of wetlands for the conservation of biological diversity and for sustaining human life.

• It is one of the largest international agreements, after the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, 196 countries) and the UN climate agreement (UNFCCC, 197 countries).

• The Ramsar List is the world’s largest network of protected areas. 

• There are over 2,400 Ramsar Sites around the world. The first Site was the Cobourg Peninsula in Australia, designated in 1974. The largest Sites are Rio Negro in Brazil (120,000 sq km), and Ngiri-Tumba-Maindombe in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Queen Maud Gulf in Canada. These Sites each cover over 60,000 sq km. 

• The countries with the most Sites are the United Kingdom with 175 and Mexico with 142. Bolivia has the largest area with 148,000 square km under the Convention protection.

• In India, 75 wetlands covering an area of 1,326,677 hectares have been designated as Ramsar Sites of International Importance from India.

• The signatory countries promise to make inventories of their Ramsar Sites and to develop management plans. These management plans include the sustainable use of the many other functions of wetlands, such as food production, water storage and recreation.

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