This event aims to draw the attention of the public and the governments of different countries of the world to the value of wetlands in order to support the sustainable development of our planet. The Convention on Wetlands, which are of international importance primarily as a habitat for waterfowl, was signed on February 2, 1971 in Ramsar, Iran, and has since been called the Ramsar Convention.
The day of its signing in 1997 was declared World Wetlands Day. The main objective of the Convention is conservation and reasonable usage of the wetlands as a means of achieving sustainable development worldwide.
One of the main conditions for accession to the Ramsar Convention is the creation of at least one Ramsar site in own territory. The choice of territory is made by a complex system of criteria. The lands declared by the state as Ramsar are entered by the secretariat of the Convention in the list of wetlands of international importance. The status of these sites is kept in the database of the International Wetlands Conservation Bureau and is constantly updated.
In 1971, the Ramsar Convention was signed by 18 states, in 2000 - by 119, by present time 159 states have acceded to it. The list includes 1869 Ramsar lands with a total area of 1 million 836 thousand km2.
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine added 9.2 thousand hectares of wetlands to the list of wetlands of international importance. This is stated in the order of Cabinet of Ministers of February 23, 2011 #147-p.