World Wetlands Day 2002: Activities planned and reported for WWD
2002 What is World Wetlands Day?2 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. 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 2001, the Convention’s Web site has
posted reports from more than 60 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. Wetlands:
Water, Life, and Culture