Story from DU
Ducks Unlimited joins conservationists around the globe and celebrate World Wetlands Day (WWD) on Feb. 2, to recognize the importance of wetland ecosystems for humans and wildlife.
Part of DU’s mission is to raise public awareness about the benefits wetlands provide not only as waterfowl habitat, but as important natural water filters. Wetlands also provide flood storage, groundwater recharge and enhanced fish habitat.
WWD focuses on conservation solutions for these beautiful and critical landscape features that some describe as nature’s kidneys because of their ability to filter and clean water.
WWD also commemorates the Feb. 2, 1971 signing of the Convention on Wetlands, in Ramsar, Iran. Each year since the first celebration in 1997, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, corporations and citizens representing all segments of society have taken advantage of the anniversary to raise public awareness of wetland values and benefits in general and the Convention in Ramsar in particular.
This year’s WWD theme is “Wetlands Action for People and Nature.”
“Since 1937, DU has been on a mission to conserve, restore and manage wetlands and associated habitats for North America’s waterfowl, wildlife and communities,” said DU Chief Conservation Officer Karen Waldrop. “In 2021, Team DU celebrated a monumental conservation milestone by restoring or protecting more than 15 million acres of habitat in North America since its founding, and I’m proud to say that every day is World Wetlands Day at Ducks Unlimited.”
DU, along with the help and support of its staunch volunteers and partners, is conserving prairie potholes and native grasslands in the Great Plains, restoring bottomland hardwood forests in the lower Mississippi River Valley, protecting and enhancing the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and protecting and improving wetland habitats in California’s Central Valley, the coastal prairies of Texas and the coastal marshes of Louisiana, just to name a few.
“For 85 years DU has remained committed to our conservation mission,” Waldrop said. “That hard work and commitment was on full display as DU protected or restored 565,485 acres of habitat in Fiscal Year 2021.”
For more information about World Wetlands Day, visit https://www.worldwetlandsday.org/.
For more information visit www.ducks.org, and be sure to follow DU’s news Twitter feed – @DUNews1937 – to get the most up-to-date news from Ducks Unlimited.
