The thematic exhibition “Wetlands: conservation, sustainable use and development”, dedicated to the International Day of wetlands, has been opened in the Documents of international organizations reading room (207g) since February 1 till March 13.

This Day is annually celebrated in the whole world on February 2 since 1997. Its establishment was caused by the world community’s concern about the rapid decline and degradation of some of the key planet’s ecosystems – wetlands. The aim of the Day is to draw the attention of the publics and management of different countries to the necessity to care for the habitat of waterbirds and the importance of wetlands in the planet’s ecosystem.

Wetlands are one the most diverse and productive ecosystem, which influences our future. These ecosystems provide the humanity with fresh water and help to replenish groundwater. They are of great importance for the cultivation of rice and fish farming, serve as a natural barrier for protection against floods and drought, protect coastline from the rising of sea levels, as well as help to fight against the climate change.

From the beginning of the previous century, the planet lost 64 % of wetlands, what is more 40 % disappeared for the last 40 years. It’s connected with the city expansion, growth of cultivated areas and natural disasters.

Because of the importance of this problem, the Convention on wetlands, a.k.a. “Ramsar Convention”, was signed in the Iran city Ramsar on February 2, 1971.

The Convention is an intergovernmental treaty, aiming at the preservation and rational use of wetlands by local, regional, national activities and international cooperation. One of the main conditions of joining the Ramsar Convention is the creation of at least one Ramsar plot of land on the country’s territory. Ramsar areas are included by the secretariat of the Convention in the List of wetlands of the international importance. States that signed the Convention are obliged to protect these areas, water birds and provide the necessary control.

As of January 1, 2017 there are 169 states – members of the Convention, on the territories of which there 2.250 wetlands of the international importance with a total area of 214.974.777 hectares.

The Republic of Belarus joined the Ramsar Convention on September 1999. Our country is rich in wetlands. Largest in Europe open lowland bogs are in natural state within the territory of Belarus. Belarusian swamps are the lungs of Europe. Thanks to them Europe has the fresh air, as 1 hectare of swamp annually removes from the atmosphere 550–1880 kilos of the carbon dioxide.

Our country works on legislative improvement in the sphere of preservation and rational use of wetlands in order to keep richness of nature. In 2013, there were introduced changes to the Law “On Environmental Protection”, which for the first time states that swamps, which are the sources of water courses, belong to natural areas subject to special protection. A special regime of protection and use is established for them. In December 2015, by the National Strategy for the conservation and rational (sustainable) use of peatlands was approved, the successful implementation of which will let Belarus preserve the natural state of 684 thousand hectares of swamps, restore at least 75 thousand hectares of degraded peatlands, save more than 7 billion cubic meters of fresh water by 2030.

As of 2017, 26 wetlands of our country are included in the Ramsar List of wetlands of the international importance.

The exhibition presents more than 50 documents in Russian and English. The majority of the exposition is documents of international organizations: books, brochures, mimeographed UN materials, periodicals and booklets.

The exposition includes the following sections:

Wetlands of international importance.
Fauna, ecology and bird protection of wetlands.
International and regional cooperation and interaction in the sphere of wetlands protection.
Preservation and rational use of wetlands in the Republic of Belarus.

The exhibition will be interesting to students and post-graduates of ecological, biological and geographic specializations, specialists in the area of environmental management and protection, scientific workers and everyone interested in the issue of wetlands and biodiversity preservation.

Useful links

Wetlands: conservation, sustainable use and development

Informational resources

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