KARACHI, Feb 1: Various programmes are being organized to celebrate the World Wetlands Day, which is celebrated around the globe to educate the masses regarding growing concern over depletion of wetlands, in the city on Sunday.

A non-governmental organization — the World Wide Fund for Nature — is organizing a programme to highlight the importance of the day at its Wetlands Centre on Sandspit where a briefing regarding the wetlands, particularly the proposed ones, will be given.

The organization is also jointly organizing an inter-school tableau competition with the Sindh Taraqi Pasand Malah Tanzeem and the City government, Hyderabad, along the River Indus bank.

The world wetlands day this year is of even more significance as the UN has declared year 2003 as the International Year of the Freshwater.

The World wetlands day marks the signing of the convention on wetlands in the Iranian city of Ramsar in early 1970s and the convention came into effect in 1975 and Pakistan is one of its earliest signatories.

Many wetlands in Pakistan are notified as the Ramsar Sites under the Ramsar Convention and it has proposed three new wetlands that these be also notified as the Ramsar Sites. These are in the pipeline and hopefully will be notified soon.

The proposed sites, all in Sindh, are Indus Delta (472,800 hectares), Rann of Kutch (566,375 hectares) and Deh Akro (20,500 hectares). These sites have gained importance owing to their unique biodiversity and habitat, which shelters a large number of species.

The wetlands in the country are not restricted to any particular group but are diverse in nature and include flood plain wetlands of major river systems and their extensive network of tributaries; saline and temporary wetlands of arid and semi- arid expanses inland; coastal wetlands system, such as lagoons, backwaters and estuaries; mangrove swamps; marine wetlands; and the corals associated with the country’s largest island of Astola, off the Balochistan coast.

The three proposed sites provide sanctuary to over 40 species of migratory waterfowl, which come from the colder Central Asian regions to spend their winters in the comparatively warmer environment here annually. Besides providing hospitable habitat to the waterfowl, the wetlands also assist in maintaining genetic and ecological biodiversity in the region.