World Wetlands Day 2015

23/03/2015

This year’s WWD 2015 is a special event and is part of the GEF SGP funded project as part of the Kuala Selangor Nature Park for Ramsar initiative. As part of the public awareness, education, participation and support for a Ramsar site, MNS needs to develop ‘Ramsar schools’ and ‘Ramsar communities’ as part of the outreach programme so that the youths and communities can educate the public and other communities.

Through the WWD2015, MNS is piloting an educational cum ecotourism experience activity to create awareness and buy-in for wetlands conservation from the communities.

So following this years’ theme ‘Wetlands for our future…Join Us!’ This theme reflects an urgency to everyone to participate an activity or stop and reflect the importance of wetlands, or visit to a wetlands area or a pledge to stop wetlands degradation especially mangroves.

Using the theme, 10 participating ‘Ramsar’ schools joined us to discover the many types of wetlands in Kuala Selangor District. Namely the mangroves & lake of Kuala Selangor Nature Park; the Raja Musa peat swamp forest, canals & rice fields of Kg Ampangan; the riverine forest of Kg Kuantan firefly reserve; and the mudflats, cockle beds and coastal mangroves of Sasaran Sg Buluh

The youths had a wetland discovery experiential activities, documenting their activities through photographs. They were also encouraged to send in their pictures to the Ramsar photo contest. This year’s celebration was fully packed with learning activities for the youths like photo workshop, mangrove and peatswamp learning experience, nursery sapling, wetlands and it’s impact to the local economy; water; reducing climate change, bird migration, cockles and fireflies in the ecosysgem and many more.

Four local ‘Ramsar’ communities will play host to the ‘Ramsar’ student’s visit and showcase the different wetlands that they stay in and depended upon. Such learning experience can develop into  ‘ecotourism’ discovering wetlands package will benefit the community livelihood in future.

Another significant milestone in this year’s celebration is the wetlands pledge by participating schools. Participating schools were awarded a RM500 voucher to develop project activities and proposals. The end results of the projects developed will be presented at the the 2015 Pesta Sayap celebration in October at the Kuala Selangor Nature Park. The final pledges will then be sent to Ramsar.

WWD is a year long event and please do your part, experience the wetlands, join in the photo competition provided that you are 15-24 years old, send in your pledge and you log into the website www.ramsar.org for more information.

Our highest appreciation to the YDP for MDKS or her time and support for this event, the teachers, students and communities for their interest and commitments, volunteers for their time and assistance, the funders GEF SGP and Ricoh and the staffs for putting all this together and running; and thank you to all who contributed.

Save now for the future