Ecobreves – ARGENTINA: Officials Join Wetlands Campaign

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

BUENOS AIRES, Oct 1 2003 (IPS) - Local and national authorities in Argentina signed a commitment in late September to advance a petition for the country's wetlands corridor to be declared a Ramsar site, granting it international protections. Ecologists have been demanding that the corridor, which extends along the Paraná River, be included on the list of more than 1,000 sites of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, signed in 1971 in the Iranian city of that name.

More than 700 participants from 16 countries gathered last month in the northeastern Argentine city of Paraná, in Entre Ríos province, to exchange experiences and information on management of these ecosystems.

The wetlands complex formed by the Paraná and Paraguayan rivers covers an area in Argentina of three million hectares, although the corridor for which protection is sought is around one million hectares along the Paraná, which runs through seven provinces