Wetlands

Inland Waters Biodiversity
The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands
University of Guelph Canada’s Aquatic Environments

AI Overview
Wetlands are areas where water covers the soil, either permanently or seasonally, and are characterized by plants adapted to saturated soil conditions. They are vital ecosystems, offering numerous ecological services like flood control, water purification, and habitat for diverse wildlife, while also storing significant amounts of carbon. However, they are also one of the most threatened ecosystems globally, with significant losses reported in populated areas
The Power of Wetlands

23  – 31 Jul 2025
Ramsar Convention on Wetlands
15th meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties (COP15)
More than 170 countries have gathered to save critical ecosystems. But the U.S. was a no-show for most of the summit and Russia said it will withdraw from the wetlands treaty.
While the United States and Russia were largely absent from the talks, China’s presence in Victoria Falls is outsized. The country sent about 90 delegates.
Major wetlands conference concludes successfully at Victoria Falls
(BirdLife) In a major win for wetlands, the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Wetlands concluded successfully today under the strong leadership of Zimbabwe.
Major successes included:
the adoption of a new Strategic Plan for the Convention 2025-2034, to set the direction for wetland conservation and wise use over the 10 years,
a much-needed boost in finance for the Convention core budget (4,1%),
critical decisions for the BirdLife Partnership on wetland Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs), national action for wetland sites of flyway importance, the establishment of a Waterbird Estimates Partnership, as well as an ambitious programme of work for the Convention’s Scientific and Technical Review Panel.
Earth’s Wetlands Are Disappearing and Global Efforts to Save Them Are Unraveling
Representatives of more than 170 countries gathered in Zimbabwe last week for the Convention on Wetlands, a global environmental protection treaty aimed at saving Earth’s fastest-disappearing ecosystem.
Geopolitics quickly took over. Disputes broke out between Russia, China, and other nations about a resolution to preserve Ukraine’s wetlands. The U.S. delegation was a no-show until the final days of the summit, when one American representative came to demand that conference documents include no mention of climate change, DEI, gender, the U.N.’s sustainable development goals, or “zero growth.”
(Inside Climate News) Scientists and civil society are urging delegates from more than 170 countries represented at a summit here to step up ambitions to combat the continued destruction of Earth’s fastest-disappearing ecosystem.
Wetlands underpin all life on Earth, supplying fresh water, oxygen, habitat and food. Yet since 1970 more than 35 percent of wetlands have been lost or degraded at a pace three times faster than losses experienced within forests.
The U.N. gathering known as the 15th meeting of the conference of the Contracting Parties of the Convention on Wetlands (COP15), one of the oldest global environmental protection treaties, comes just weeks after scientists released a dire warning about the destruction and declining health of global wetlands, describing the decline as an overlooked crisis that threatens food and water security, and worsens climate change.
Some environmentalists have criticized the wetlands treaty as lacking enforcement power, but conference attendees stressed the convention’s achievements, including the creation of more than 2,500 protected Ramsar wetlands sites. The treaty is also known as the Ramsar convention since it was signed in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971.

2016

14 January
Wetlands in Canada
Wetlands cover about 13% of the land area of Canada. They were once abundantly distributed throughout the country. Recently, however, wetlands have become an increasingly scarce resource in settled areas of the country. Throughout Canada, wetlands have been adversely affected by land use practices that have resulted in vegetation destruction, nutrient and toxic loading, sedimentation, and altered flow regimes. For example, in southern Ontario, 68% of the original wetlands have been converted from their natural state to support alternative uses such as agriculture and housing. Similarly, only about 25% of the original wetlands of the “pothole” region of southwestern Manitoba remain in existence. In the North, however, most of the wetlands are intact.

2008

July 25
Rising demands threaten wetlands
The recent surge in demand for food and biofuel has increased the risks facing the world’s wetlands, warn scientists.
A declaration by 700 scientists said the habitats faced a growing risk of being converted into farmland.
June 30
Kenya plants sugarcane; America uproots it
(The Economist) LAST week Charlie Crist, the governor of Florida, announced the purchase of almost 300 square miles of land in the middle of the Everglades from a sugar producer. Rather than building on it, Florida will allow the land to revert into its natural state.
On the other side of the world, the government of Kenya said it plans to do exactly the opposite: 80 square miles of the Tana river delta will be dug up by a private company that will grow sugarcane to be turned into biofuel. The Tana delta, which lies 120 miles north of the coastal city of Mombasa and drains Kenya’s longest river, is a mix of savannah, mangrove swamps, forest and beaches. Like the Everglades, this wetland area has unique wildlife; it sustains lions, hippos, reptiles, primates, rare sharks and 345 bird species, as well as thousands of farmers and fishermen. It provides the only dry-season grazing for hundreds of miles around.
The wetlands that Florida plans to preserve will not only provide a natural buffer against hurricanes, they will also help provide fresh water to Florida’s growing population. It will also act as a natural filtering system, eliminating the need to pump contaminated agricultural runoff into the Everglades’ Lake Okeechobee.
In Kenya, the Mumias Sugar company boasts about the jobs its project will create and the infrastructure it will improve. Mumias says environmental damage will be limited and income will reach £1.25m ($2.49m) over 20 years.
But two environmental NGOs, Nature Kenya and The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, estimate revenue from fishing, farming and tourism will provide £30m over the same period, and they worry that Mumias’s project will cause “an ecological and social disaster”. They worry about pollution from farming and heavy drainage of the delta. Their reports say that Mumias’s projections greatly overstate the potential profit, and ignore fees for the use of water. They add that the loss of grazing land will have a huge impact on livelihoods locally, and will result in overuse and increased degradation of remaining grazing lands.
10 April 2008
New Rules on Saving Wetlands Push the Limits of the Science
In one of the most significant wetlands regulations in 2 decades, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has spelled out what developers must do to mitigate damage from their construction projects. The new regulations are meant to make mitigation efforts more accountable, successful, and scientific. But some researchers and environmentalists believe that the rule isn’t strict enough, and that too little is known about how to restore some of these fragile ecosystems, for the rule to work as intended. In 1989, President George H. W. Bush announced a policy of no net loss of wetlands. Mitigation was a major tool to achieve the goal… In many places, scientists just don’t know enough about the exact functions of particular wetlands and how to prioritize their restoration. More
April 1
Post-Katrina project shines spotlight on wetlands
(USA Today) As the wetlands disappeared, the natural barrier to tidal surge slowly eroded so much that when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita came, there was nothing to slow the 10- to 20-foot surge that contributed to the devastation of New Orleans and southeast Louisiana.
March 31
New Rule Lets Builders ‘Bank’ Efforts to Restore Wetlands
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration announced requirements on Monday to encourage builders to compensate for destroying wetlands or streams by paying to restore or create wetlands elsewhere.
Environmentalists worried that the policy could encourage wetlands destruction and overall loss.
“There’s nothing in here that says we’re going to improve mitigation,” Julie Sibbing, a wetlands expert at the National Wildlife Federation, said. “It’s just going to be easier and cheaper. And the cheaper it is to mitigate, the more economic it is to buy land that has wetlands on it and destroy them.”
Ms. Sibbing said that mitigation banking was already being used, but that the new rule would make it difficult to argue that a developer should be required to provide on-site preservation.
A wetland often is important to a local ecosystem, and “it doesn’t help to move it 100 miles away,” Ms. Sibbing said.
With the new rule, the business of creating alternative wetlands is likely to prosper. George Howard, who owns a business in that field near Raleigh, N.C., said “the vast amount” of alternative wetlands involved not creating wetlands, but restoring lost wetlands.
The environmental agency [EPA] and the corps [of engineers] said the rules would increase public participation.
30 March
The politics of Katrina recovery
With the departure of former U.S. Sen. John Edwards from the presidential race, a vacuum exists over who will be the Katrina candidate.
Like Clinton, [Obama] pledges to support the restoration of Louisiana’s wetlands, noting that every four miles of wetlands can absorb about a foot of a hurricane’s storm surge.

Louisiana’s Wetlands are the end result of America’s intricate water basin system.
41% of the continental U.S. drains into the Mississippi River down to the Gulf of Mexico.
That includes 31 states & 2 Canadian provinces, affecting over two-thirds of the country directly and indirectly.
Total area drained 1.2 million square miles including 160 million tons of sediment that should be building the coast of Louisiana, instead is being washed out into the Gulf.