Wetlands are not wastelands, stresses Meghji
By John Mapepele

Tanzania has appealed to world governments to place great emphasis on the protection of wetlands as a measure to preserve water and improve ecological systems presently threatened by unlimited human activities.

The Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Mrs. Zakhia Hamdani Meghji said wetlands by combining both land and water provided heaven for a wide range of biodiversity to live and multiply, and a range of ecological service to the mankind.

Opening the Africa Regional meeting on the conservation of wetlands, the minister said wetlands were cradles of biodiversity and called for an integrated management of wetlands, saying they were the habitat of thousands of rare species. 

The minister told the over 120 delegates who gathered in Arusha to work out a roadmap for the 9th meeting of the Global Ramsar Convention scheduled for Kampala, Uganda next November that if Africa was bent to guarantee to continuous water supply for its people ensure a sustainable living for its inhabitants it had every obligation to conserve the wetlands.

Mrs Meghji said Africa has to change its mindset on wetlands by incorporating these biodiversity hot spots in national development plans. She lamented that many experts in the continent disregard wetlands in their overall national development strategies. 

The minister stressed that the protection of today’s wetlands and biodiversity was Africa’s only guarantee to clean water cycles and health environmental for future generations. 

Tanzania is one of the countries implementing phase II of the wetlands projects. The Rufiji wetlands have been picked as a demonstration site for the development of marine wetlands type management plan.

Rufiji wetlands shelter a number of endangered species including the coelacanth, dugong and sea turtles, all protected by international convention on endangered species. (CITES).

The main objective of wetlands pilot projects is to enhance their management through capacity building and the incorporation of the populations’ right to live and develop near wetlands.

The conversion on wetlands adopted in the Iranian city of Ramsar in 1971, is an international treaty, which provides a framework for national action and international co-operation for the conservation of wetland and logical use of their resources.