Panochaville

The List of Wetlands of International Importance

04 July 2011

The Ramsar List was established in response to Article 2.1 of the Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar, Iran, 1971), which reads:

EachContracting Party shall designate suitable wetlands within its territory for inclusion in a List of Wetlands of International Importance, hereinafter referred to as “the List” which is maintained bythe bureau [secretariat of the Convention] established under Article 8.

Wetlands included in the List acquire a new status at the national level and are recognized by the international community asbeing of significant value not only for the country, or the countries, in which they are located, but for humanity as a whole.

The Convention establishes that “wetlands should be selected for theList on account of their international significance in terms of ecology, botany, zoology, limnology or hydrology.” Over the years, the Conference of the Contracting Parties has adopted more specificcriteria interpreting the Convention text, as well as an Information Sheet on Ramsar Wetlands and a Classification system of wetland type.

All issues pertaining to the Ramsar List were encapsulatedin Resolution VII.11 adopted by the Conference of the Parties in May 1999 and entitled Strategic Framework and guidelines for the future development of the List of Wetlands of InternationalImportance.

Everything in the Strategic Framework is founded upon this “Vision for the Ramsar List”:

To develop and maintain an international network of wetlands which are important for the conservationof global biological diversity and for sustaining human life through the ecological and hydrological functions they perform.

The Convention’s goal is to achieve Ramsar listing for as many wetlandsthroughout the world as meet the criteria of international importance; in the short term, the objective is to have at least 2500 Sites in the List by 2010, almost twice the current number. To bring...