Submit your best photos to a World Wetlands Day photo celebration
By Adrian Long
Showcase the beauty of wetlands along with your talent! Submit your best photos to a World Wetlands Day photo celebration under this year's theme "Wetlands Tourism: A Great Experience," sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in partnership with the Ramsar Convention Secretariat. Until January 20 upload your best photo(s) to a Flickr site in one of four wetlands and tourism-related categories: wildlife, landscapes, plants, and tourists (one per category per participant). All are invited to mark your favourite photo in each category through till January 22. The top photos in each category will be showcased on U.S. Department of State, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Ramsar Convention Secretariat and its International Organization Partners' websites and social media platforms around the world on World Wetlands Day, Feb. 2, 2012. As an International Organisation Partner, BirdLife has worked closely with Ramsar since the Convention's inception. Visit either www.flickr.com/groups/WWD2012PhotoCelebration or Facebook at www.facebook.com/StateDepartment.OES for instructions and more information. BirdLife Partners worldwide are supporting their Governments in achieving the Convention's mission, "the conservation and wise use of all wetlands through local and national actions and international cooperation, as a contribution towards achieving sustainable development". BirdLife Partner staff, members, volunteers and supporters are involved in wetland monitoring, awareness raising, capacity-building, research, and developing and implementing national policy and legislation. BirdLife has still more potential to support the Convention. In 2011 the BirdLife and Ramsar Secretariats renewed and refreshed their Memorandum of Cooperation, with a strong emphasis on linkages at regional and national level. The Memorandum provides an ideal basis for growing and consolidating constructive co-operation between national Governments and BirdLife Partners. 2 February each year is World Wetlands Day. It marks the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on 2 February 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Each year since 1997, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and groups of citizens at all levels of the community have taken advantage of the opportunity to undertake actions aimed at raising public awareness of wetland values and benefits in general, and the Ramsar Convention in particular.
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