World Wetlands day

The theme for 2024 is "Wetlands and human wellbeing" and highlights the urgent need to prioritize wetland restoration.

Health of this planet and human wellbeing
The health of this planet is equally important as the health of creatures living in here, in fact the living condition of this planet entirely depends on the health of this planet. World wetlands day is an important day to remind people of this planet about preserving the health of their planet.

What is wetland and her roles in planet's health?
According to the US environment protection agency (EPA), Wetlands include marshes, swamps, dogs, riverbanks, mangroves, floodplains, rice fields and anywhere else where saturation with water is a dominant factor. This determines the nature of soil development and types of plant and animal communities there. Wetlands are widespread in every country and continent in this world except in Antarctica. Surprisingly if all of the wetlands in this world gathered together, this combined area will be one third larger than the United States.

These wetlands play a key role in the life of this earth, higher numbers of plants and animal species are found in these lands compared to other land forms. Wetlands play a key role in feeding downstream waters and tapping or soaking the floodwaters, they also recharge ground water supplies, remove pollution and makes a home for fishes and wild lives. Local economy highly depends on wetlands as these lands are the key to irrigation, animal and wild lives.

Many environmentalists have defined wetlands as the "Kidney" of this ecosystem. As kidney purifies the blood in human anatomy, wetlands also purifies waters and chemicals in our ecosystem. Wetlands filters sedimentation, decompose vegetative matters and convert chemicals into usable forms. These recycling ability of wetlands makes them critical in the overall functioning of this earth.

Sadly the rate of wetland deterioration is happening rapidly in this world, the pressure on wetlands are likely to be increased in coming decades due to increased global demand for water and land.

10 Ramsar lists of Nepal
Nepal is the second largest nation of this planet in water resources, Nepal has numerous wetlands like GhodaGhodi Lake, KoshiTappu, Hajari lake, Jagdishpur lake, Gosaikunda and all seven lakes of Pokhara city. Wetlands are called "Simsar" or "Ramsar" in Nepali language. Nepal officially signed the wetlands conservation agreement on 1987 and since putting up a lot of efforts to preserve its wetlands. Nepali wetlands are the winter homes for birds which fly all the way from Siberia and other places but ironically Nepali wetlands are being captured for habitat and squeezed every year. Without the preservation of this planet and nature the existence of mankind will be always on risk, so the day February 2nd apparently alarms every governments, leaderships and citizens in the preservation of wetlands. February 2nd marks the anniversary of the signing of the convention of wetlands of international importance (Ramsar) convention in Ramsar Iran on 2nd February 1971.

Can this world afford to decrease the wetlands which have been providing rice to 3 billion people?
Can this world afford to squeeze wetlands which are the largest habitat to animals and plants?

For me putting pressure on these wetlands will eventually turn out to be a suicidal step for mankind. As a generation it's our first and foremost priority to handover a healthy and functional planet for coming generations and the planet will be healthy only when we will be able to protect and preserve wetlands. Protecting wetlands is our common responsibility, let's get together for this.

-Suyog Dhakal