The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands is signed
On this day · 2 February 1971
In a small Iranian resort town, delegates from 18 nations agreed the first global treaty devoted to saving the planet's wetlands.
On 2 February 1971, delegates from eighteen nations gathered in the Caspian Sea resort of Ramsar, Iran, and signed the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance. It was the first modern global treaty built around a single type of habitat, and it broke fresh ground in international environmental law.
The driving worry was water birds. Through the 1960s, conservationists watched marshes, estuaries, and mudflats being drained and built over, and waterfowl populations falling with them. Rather than protect a species, the treaty protects the places birds and people depend on, asking each member to list and safeguard wetlands of international importance and to use all wetlands wisely.
Wetlands filter water, buffer floods, store carbon, and feed millions, yet they are among the fastest-disappearing ecosystems on Earth.
The agreement entered force in 1975 and now spans most of the world’s countries and thousands of listed sites. Its birthday, 2 February, is marked each year as World Wetlands Day.
Sources & references
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