The programme was started with the aim to raise awareness of the strategic importance of wetlands to facilitate proper management and restoration of wetlands and focuses mainly on wetlands outside nature reserves.

This year the theme of World Wetlands Day will be ‘Wetlands & Tourism,’ celebrated on Thursday 2 February 2012. This will celebrate the 41st anniversary of the Ramsar Convention, an intergovernmental treaty signed on 2 February 1971 in Iran for the protection of wetlands worldwide. 160 countries have since signed the treaty.