"Wetlands provide many ecological, economic, and social benefits, such as habitat for fish, wildlife, and a variety of plants. They serve as nurseries for saltwater and freshwater fishes and shellfish of commercial and recreational importance… We should all be concerned about the substantial loss of this diminishing resource, which helps ensure good water quality for local communities and provides vital habitat for a diversity of important wildlife species.

Wetlands are at a tipping point.  While we have made great strides in conserving and restoring wetlands since the 1950s when we were losing an area equal to half the size of Rhode Island each year, we remain on a downward trend that is alarming.

Ken Salazar-Secretary of the Interior

The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, known as  the Ramsar Convention, is an intergovernmental treaty that provides the framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use (defined as the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands and their resources, for the benefit of humankind) of wetlands and their resources.

The Ramsar Convention is the only global environmental treaty that deals with a particular ecosystem. The treaty was adopted in the Iranian city of Ramsar in 1971 and the Convention's 162 member countries cover all geographic regions of the planet.

The Ramsar Convention's mission is "the conservation and wise use of all wetlands through local and national actions and international cooperation, as a contribution towards achieving sustainable development throughout the world".

The Convention uses a broad definition of the types of wetlands covered in its mission, including lakes and rivers, swamps and marshes, wet grasslands and peatlands, oases, estuaries, deltas and tidal flats, near-shore marine areas, mangroves and coral reefs, and human-made sites such as fish ponds, rice paddies, reservoirs, and salt pans.

There were an estimated 110.1 million acres (44.6 million ha) of wetlands in the Conterminous U.S. in 2009. Wetlands composed 5.5 percent of the surface area of the U. S. An estimated 95 percent of all wetlands were freshwater and five percent were in the marine or estuarine (saltwater) systems. There were an estimated 104.3 million acres (42.2 million ha) of freshwater wetland and 5.8 million acres (2.4 million ha) of intertidal (saltwater) wetlands.

Credit: USFWS

Wetlands provide a multitude of ecological, economic and social benefits. They provide habitat for fish, wildlife and a variety of plants. Wetlands are nurseries for many saltwater and freshwater fishes and shellfish of commercial and recreational importance. Wetlands are also important landscape features because they hold and slowly release flood water and snow melt, recharge groundwater, act as filters to cleanse water of impurities, recycle nutrients, and provide recreation and wildlife viewing opportunities for millions of people.

Generally, wetlands are lands where saturation with water is the dominant factor determining the nature of soil development and the types of plant and animal communities living in the soil and on its surface (Cowardin, December 1979). Wetlands vary widely because of regional and local differences in soils, topography, climate, hydrology, water chemistry, vegetation, and other factors, including human disturbance. Indeed, wetlands are found from the tundra to the tropics and on every continent except Antarctica.

The United States joined the Ramsar Convention on the 18th of April 1987 and to date has successfully nominated and received the Ramsar designation for 34 sites.  Across the globe there are more than 2,000 Ramsar sites covering some 477 million acres.

World Wetlands Day is celebrated on February 2 around the globe.

For more information on the Ramsar conference and a comprehensive list of all wetland sites, please visit www.Ramsar.org

Wetland maps and information:  http://www.fws.gov/wetlands/