An international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands.

It is also known as the Convention on Wetlands. It is named after the city of Ramsar in Iran, where the convention was signed in 1971.

The Ramsar List vision is “to develop and maintain an international network of wetlands which are important for the conservation of global biological diversity and for sustaining human life through the maintenance of their ecosystem components, processes and benefits/services”.

Today, the Ramsar List is the world’s largest network of protected areas.  There are over 2400 Ramsar Sites across the world covering more that 2,5 million square kilometres. South Africa has 30 Ramsar sites.