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March 1, 2021
Although February 2nd is recognized as World Wetland Day, the increasing importance of this issue globally may well support arguments to extend this recognition to the entire month. The Day marks the signing of the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar Convention) in the Iranian city for which it is named, on February 2, 1971. Over the past five decades, the majority of Caribbean countries eventually became signatories to the Ramsar Convention, with many having designated Ramsar Sites.
These include marshes, swamps, and bogs. There are several such sites with specific concerns to the Caribbean, such as mangroves, lagoons, swamp forests, freshwater, and brackish marshes. In the most basic sense, water, wetland, and life cannot exist without each other as agriculture thrives on wetlands. Like human kidneys that have the purpose of extracting waste from our blood, wetlands clean the water supplies that flow through them, mitigating large flood events, recharging underground aquifers. We need water; agriculture needs wetlands.
Globally, there are 2,414 sites designated as Ramsar Wetlands. These sites are spread throughout the 171 member countries of the UN encompassing more than 630 million acres. Wetlands are important ecosystems with very important ecological and economical functions. They are ideal habitats for nearly 40% of global biodiversity and provide us with the water we use. Wetlands are also rich in natural resources, protecting us by acting like a big natural sponge to reduce flooding, especially in low-lying areas.
There are several Ramsar sites throughout the region, ranging from one in Grenada to three and four in Trinidad and Jamaica, respectively. Astoundingly, as of 2020, there are none listed for Guyana and Haiti, while there is only one such site listed for the fellow Caricom country of Suriname.
Grenada’s lone Ramsar site is Levera Wetlands, which has a surface area of 1280 acres. It is a unique and pristine ecosystem preserving a mangrove swamp, sandy beaches, coral reefs, seagrass beds, an offshore island, and a host of endemic and endangered species including leatherback turtle. But the Levera Wetlands is under threat from ‘developers’. The Ramsar convention seeks to prevent the increasing share of wetlands reclaimed to allow what corporate leaders and their enablers call development.
This is a major concern in Grenada as ‘development’ is targeted for Levera area. As presently conceived, it is hard to imagine the coexistence of these development plans and the country honoring its Ramsar obligations. But is important to recognize though that areas recognized as Ramsar sites, in Grenada and other countries, are not the only Wetland areas needing protection.
But such ‘developments’ can rightfully be seen as underdevelopment because of their unsustainability. Alternatively, Wetlands preservations can be seen as development.
Perhaps part of the reason for the low level of consciousness in Caribbean countries about the existence of wetlands in our countries and communities is that Wetlands Day is but a single day and there is little public education on the subject.
Accordingly, our leaders and citizens should seek to increase awareness of the roles and importance of wetlands. Policies should be revised to ensure that wetlands are protected and are sustainably used. And, policymakers should take additional steps to restore degraded wetland areas.
The current pandemic should awaken us on the importance of agriculture and this, in turn, should highlight the importance of wetlands. Wetlands benefit the agriculture sector and at the same time replenish the groundwater. It protects the land from heavy surface runoff and flooding events during adverse weather.
Trinbagonian writer/musician Aldwin Albino’s “Ode to the Mangrove” speaks to the fertility of the Laventille mangrove, making the larger case that such areas are actually treasures teeming with life and supporting larger eco-systems.
And, in the present context of Grenada, the attached video raises an issue of major importance for the preservation of wetlands. In documenting the destruction of wetlands areas around the country, these activists implicitly address the issue of national priorities and question the meaning of Grenada’s commitment to its obligation to the Ramsar Convention.
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Martin P. Felix, co-editor of Big Drum Nation, is a visual artist and educator. He lives with his family in New York City.