Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has issued a proclamation declaring Saturday, February 2, 2013 as the World Wetlands Day to be celebrated throughout the Republic as a Working Holiday.
A Foreign Ministry release says this year 2013 is the United Nations International Year for Water Cooperation and will be celebrated in Montserrado County, Liberia under the theme “Westland and Water Management”; with the slogan Wetlands Takes Care of Water.
The proclamation further calls on all people residing in the territorial confines of Liberia to join the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in order to execute appropriate programs to make the day meaningful.
The celebration of the event is to raise people’s awareness of the interdependence between water and wetlands, to highlight ways to ensure the equitable sharing of water between different stakeholder groups and to understand that without wetlands there will be no water;
The proclamation said Liberia is a contracting party of the convention on Wetlands of International Importance.
The purpose for observing the World Wetlands Day is to focus world attention on the importance of wetlands values and benefits to stimulate political attention and action, and to empower people to become active agents of sustainable and equitable development.
The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, known as Ramsar Convention, was adopted by the United Nations on February 2, 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar to be observed as World Wetlands Day of each year.
2013 The NEWS