Special day celebrates wetlands' values, benefits

Sunday, February 2, is World Wetlands Day, a day to celebrate and share the importance of wetlands world-wide. This year's theme, "Wetlands and Agriculture," resonates with waterfowl hunters and rice growers alike and perfectly complements the stewardship partnership between the USA Rice Federation and Ducks Unlimited (DU).
"Given the intimate link between agriculture and wetlands, World Wetlands Day's theme placing a focus on the need for wetlands, water, and agricultural sectors to work together for the best shared outcomes is a great idea," said Jeff Durand a Louisiana rice farmer and cochairman of USA Rice's Stewardship Partnership Committee. "Nowhere is that link more obvious than in the managed wetlands of rice agriculture."
Rice production in the United States overlaps precisely with the three most important waterfowl wintering areas - the Mississippi Alluvial Valley, the Gulf Coast and California's Central Valley. Extensive research measuring the waterfowl food resources in rice fields in each of these regions has been done for many years.
"According to a soon-to-be-released study, 42 percent and 44 percent of the food resources available to wintering dabbling ducks along the Gulf Coast and Central Valley, respectively, comes from winter flooded rice fields. Obviously, winter flooded rice fields are continentally significant for waterfowl," said Scott Manley, DU director of conservation innovation.
World Wetlands Day marks the signing of the Convention on Wetlands on February 2, 1971, in Ramsar, Iran. 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 raise public awareness of wetland values and benefits in general and the Ramsar Convention in particular.