The Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment joins today the celebration of World Wetlands Day, a holiday that commemorates the signing on February 2, 1971 of the Convention Relative to Wetlands of International Importance especially as Waterfowl Habitat, better known as the Ramsar Convention. This document entered into force in 1975 and has become the most important international treaty on wetland conservation.

This year, World Wetlands Day is celebrated under the slogan “Wetlands for our future: sustainable livelihoods” with the aim of raising awareness of their value and encouraging conservation and rational use projects of these areas through local, national and international cooperation actions. All this with the intention of maintaining a sustainable use of these ecosystems, which are among the most fragile on the planet.

From the Biodiversity Foundation we collaborate with different projects related to this theme such as the LIFE Albufera project, of the Global Nature Foundation, which has organized a conference to highlight these spaces on February 6. Attendees will be able to participate in activities such as sustainable fishing in the Albufera, a walk through the lagoon, a talk on eel conservation, a bike route through the rice fields or a day of scientific bird ringing.

In the same vein, LIFE Humedales de La Mancha has launched the poetry contest “Humedales de la Mancha”, which seeks to promote, through writing, the natural and cultural values of the steppes of La Mancha.

In addition, Aquabird, an initiative launched by the University of Cadiz that has identified the ecosystem services provided by waterbirds in areas where sustainable aquaculture models are developed thanks to the analysis of interactions between natural seabird populations and aquaculture facilities in Natura 2000 Network.

The The University of Valencia has carried out the project during 2015 “Carbon balances and climate response of the Spanish wetlands of the Natura 2000 Network in the Mediterranean region: adaptation and mitigation of climate change”. The University itself developed the project in 2014  “Climate change and key ecological processes in Mediterranean aquatic ecosystems, associated with management models”.

On the other hand, the Polytechnic University of Valencia through the Institute of Water and Environmental Engineering has developed the project “Water quality control in the LIFE+12 project for the integrated management of three artificial wetlands in compliance with the framework directives on water, birds and habitats” that supports the  project LIFE+12 ALBUFERA, which is based on the premise that the improvement of water quality leads to an improvement of habitats and biodiversity in aquatic ecosystems, while the specific contribution of this LIFE is that this improvement can be carried out with properly managed artificial wetlands (image above, Polytechnic University of Valencia).

Finally, the Aranzadi Science Society executes the project “Wetland conservation through an international network of sustainable tourism: The Route of the Ansars”. This project aims to structure an enormous resource available in Spain such as nature tourism within the Natura 2000 Network, taking advantage of the existence offour wetlands of great interest and importance for waterfowl: the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve (Vizcaya), the lagoons of La Nava (Palencia), the lagoon of El Oso (Ávila) and Doñana (Huelva-Seville).