[posted on 23 January 2008]
2 February – World Wetlands Day in Ramsar
Wetlands and human health
The Convention’s suggested theme for World Wetlands Day, 2 February 2008, is Healthy Wetlands, Healthy People, and this will also be the theme for Ramsar’s 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties in October-November 2008 in the Republic of Korea.
In Ramsar's interpretation of this theme, the opportunity has been taken to introduce to the wetland community some topics that exemplify both the direct, positive effects on human health of maintaining healthy wetlands –such as the provision of food, clean water, pharmaceutical products, etc.– and the direct negative effects of mismanaging wetlands that result in the impairment of our health and even the loss of life –such as through the effects of water-related diseases, burning peatlands, floods, and water pollution.
Ramsar's aim is to emphasise that the strong relationship between healthy functioning wetland ecosystems and human health underlines the importance of management strategies that support both the health of wetland ecosystems and the health of humans. And that the costs of poor management can be high –wetland-related diseases, for example, claim the lives of more than 3 million people every year and bring suffering to many more. Of course it is not suggested that the management challenges have easy solutions –for any country, managing wetlands to keep them healthy and ensure that they continue to deliver ecosystem services for the benefit of people, while at the same time meeting the demands for water for growing crops, supplying energy and responding to the needs of industry, requires a finely tuned balancing act. What is important is to value correctly the ecosystem services that intact, healthy wetlands supply when decisions on the human uses of available water are made.
The WWD educational poster illustrates the key topics that have been selected, and the accompanying thematic sheets will give a few ‘soundbites’ of information on each of the topics as they relate specifically to wetlands.
