Wuhan Declaration adopted at COP14 on wetlands conservation

The Wuhan Declaration was adopted Sunday at the 14th Meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (COP14), which is being held in China's Wuhan and Switzerland's Geneva.

As the main fruit of the COP14, the declaration called for "strong will and practical actions" to promote the conservation, restoration, management, wise and sustainable use of wetlands and to prevent and mitigate the systematic risks arising from the continuing loss and degradation of wetlands worldwide.

Despite numerous conservation efforts, the world's natural wetlands have declined by 35 percent since the Ramsar Convention entered into force about five decades ago, according to the COP14.

The Ramsar Convention, named after the city of Ramsar in Iran, where the convention was signed in 1971, is an intergovernmental agreement dedicated to the conservation and rational use of wetland ecosystems. To date, it has 172 contracting parties.

Calls made by the declaration include supporting wetlands-related legislation, undertaking the assessment and accounting of wetlands resources, conserving, restoring and sustainably managing wetlands in urban and suburban areas, and strengthening global technical cooperation and knowledge sharing.