World Wetlands Day
World Wetlands Day
To celebrate World Wetlands Day, Walthamstow Wetlands, a Ramsar wetland designated site of international importance, will be hosting a programme of events between Friday 1st and Sunday 3rd February.
On Friday 1st February, there will be a talk all about the value of wetlands and their conservation with Ian Crump, Biodiversity Field Officer at Thames Water.
On Saturday 2nd February, London Wildlife Trust will be leading a series of guided walks including an early-morning guided walk which will allow attendees out-of-hours access to discover the morning movement of birds across Europe's largest urban wetlands nature reserve. There will be two additional guided walks at 10am and 2pm to further explore the heritage of the site and the wonderful wildlife that calls it home. For those wishing to get more hands-on experience, there will be a practical conservation session between 10am-3pm on the Saturday too. Volunteers can support London Wildlife Trust's ranger team to manage habitats onsite, learn how to coppice trees, build fences and much more.
On Sunday 3rd February, a new photographic exhibition will be launched – the accumulation of winning photographs from London Wildlife Trust’s recent photography competition capturing some of the wintery tales that Walthamstow Wetlands has to tell. There will also be family activities taking part on the Sunday where children can create their own Wetlands scene, paint amazing fish and have a go at pond dipping.
For more information, please visit www.walthamstowwetlands.com/world-wetlands-day
Walthamstow Wetlands forms part of the critical network of waterbodies in and around London that that not only support wildlife but also help to protect the capital from the impacts of a changing climate. Wetlands are essential to efforts to regulate global climate change. Inland wetlands such as rivers, lakes flood plains, and swamps function like sponges, absorbing and storing excess rainfall and reducing flood surges whilst coastal wetlands such as salt marshes, mangroves, seagrass beds, and coral reefs act like shock absorbers, reducing the intensity of waves, storm surges and tsunamis.
Wetlands also regulate the global climate by storing vast amounts of carbon; for example peatlands cover approximately 3% of our planet’s land and store approximately 30% of all land-based carbon – twice the amount than all the world’s forests combined. With temperatures rising, oceans warming, snow and ice melting and sea levels rising faster than recorded during any previous century, now is more important than ever to conserve and restore wetlands around the world.
For more information on global wetlands, please visit https://www.worldwetlandsday.org/.
