Today we celebrate World Wetlands Day. A date that emphasizes the importance of conserving these ecosystems and raising public awareness about their value.
Today we celebrate World Wetlands Day. A date that emphasizes the importance of conserving these ecosystems and raising public awareness about their value. The theme chosen for this year’s World Wetlands Day (“Wetlands for a Sustainable Urban Future”) has been selected to highlight the importance of preserving urban wetlands in a healthy state, where they bring significant benefits to the inhabitants of these areas.
Spain is one of the countries in the world that has designated the most Wetlands of International Importance (included in the Ramsar List): our country has a total of 75 wetlands included to date in the Ramsar List, only behind Mexico and the United Kingdom in the world, which demonstrates the strong commitment of all Spanish administrations to conserve their main wetlands.
Our wetlands are home to up to 40 percent of the waterfowl that winter in the western Mediterranean. In Spain, a lot of work has been done in this field in recent years, as evidenced by the Spanish National Report on the application of the Ramsar Convention in the period 2015-2017, which demonstrates the important advances in wetland restoration in Spain. And all this has been promoted by very different actors, including administrations (national, regional and local), different organisations and other interested groups such as foundations and NGOs.
Wetlands are one of the most complex, productive and dynamic, but also most fragile, ecosystems on the planet. They provide a series of irreplaceable global services, especially highlighting their contribution to the maintenance of the great variety of life that exists on our planet.
It is estimated that more than 1,000 million people around the world depend directly on wetlands for their daily sustenance, since these spaces allow a great diversity of means of earning a living in activities such as rice cultivation, fishing, tourism, transport, or the manufacture of textiles.
Half of humanity, some 4,000 million people, currently live in urban areas. That share will reach 66% by 2050 as people move to cities in search of better jobs and an active social life. Cities generate about 80% of the world’s economic output. The expansion of cities and the increase in demand for land bring pressures on wetlands, which are degraded, filled in and used as land for construction.
In this context, it is important to be aware that urban or peri-urban wetlands that remain intact or are restored contribute to making cities more livable and offer many services to their inhabitants (reducing flood risk, improving drinking water supply and quality, as well as air quality in populations with high levels of pollution, possibilities of use as green areas for recreation, etc.).
