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February 2, 2012 marks the 16th World Wetlands Day (WWD). With the theme of Wetlands and Tourism, it is linked to the theme for the next meeting of the Conference of the Parties, COP11: Wetlands, Tourism and Recreation, which will take place in July 2012, in Bucharest, Romania.

WWD was set to mark the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on 2 February 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Each year since 1997, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and groups of citizens at all levels of the community have taken advantage of the opportunity to undertake actions aimed at raising public awareness of wetland values and benefits in general, and the Ramsar Convention in particular.

China joined the Convention in 1992, and parties to the Convention now have reached 160. 1994 wetlands have been included in the List of Wetlands of International Importance, with a total area of about 192 million hectares.

The wetland plays a key role in flood control, water conservation, pollution control, environment regulation and so on. It is deemed as a warehouse with water and food for humans as well as a habitat for rare wildlife to overwinter and reproduce. The wetland is known as the "kidney of the earth". Together with forest and ocean, it is named three major ecosystems.