Van Long Wetland Nature Reserve in northern province of Ninh Binh. (Photo: VNA)World Wetlands Day marks the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on February 2, 1971. 2022 will be the first year that World Wetlands Day will be observed as a UN international day, following its adoption by the UN General Assembly on August 30, 2021 in a resolution co-sponsored by 75 member states.
This year’s event is themed “Wetland Action for People and Nature,” aims to motivate individuals, businesses, and governments to “invest financial, human and political capital to save the world’s wetlands from disappearing and to restore those we have degraded.”
It was estimated that wetlands, amongst the world’s most valuable ecosystems and essential regulators of the global climate, are disappearing three times faster than forests. Approximately 35 percent of the world’s wetlands have been lost since 1970.
The MoNRE asks relevant ministries, organisations and local administrations to take the occasion to raise public awareness of the value and importance of wetlands to human health and nature; to strengthen management and restoration of wetlands; and to call on people to engage in protecting and sustainably exploiting wetlands.
The 1971 Convention on Wetlands is an inter-governmental treaty whose mission is “the conservation and wise use of all wetlands through local and national actions and international cooperation, as a contribution towards achieving sustainable development throughout the world”. It has been joined by 172 UN member states. Vietnam participated the convention in 1989, making it the first signatory in Southeast Asia./.
VNA
