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WATER COOPERATION, SUSTAINABILITY AND POVERTY ERADICATIONWetland cooperation is taking care of waterTobias Salathé, Senior Advisor, Ramsar Convention SecretariatIn the 1960s, when the international environmental movementstarted to take shape, it focused as a priority on landscapesthat are fundamental regulators of water regimes. To supportthis focus, and to streamline the public awareness, the expertcommunity created a new term: ‘wetlands’. A single name to focuson the essence of all water-related ecological systems, naturaland human-made, an obvious term to subsume important landscapesknown as swamps and marshes, lakes and rivers, wetgrasslands, fens, bogs and other types of peatlands, undergroundand karst aquifers, oases, estuaries, deltas and tidal flats, nearshoremarine areas, mangroves and coral reefs, human-made fishponds, rice paddies, reservoirs and salt pans.The understanding of the basic hydrological functions of suchwetlands was crucial to acknowledge the fundamental truth thatour human societies depend on our natural environment, and thatit is wetlands which fulfil the fundamental ecological functions inthis context, notably as regulators of water regimes and as habitatssupporting many characteristic species of flora andfauna. In the early 1970s, UNESCO launched a worldwidecampaign on the wetlands’ ‘liquid assets’ puttingfor the first time into the spotlight their great economic,cultural, scientific and recreational value, the loss ofwhich would be irreparable.Migratory bird experts were among the first torealise the functional connectivity between individualwetland ecosystems, often aligned along river courses,and forming together a system of stepping stones acrossentire countries and continents. Swan, geese and duckmigrations along their major wetland flyways, traditionallyknown by waterfowl hunters, and just about tobe analysed and understood by the first generation ofenvironmentalists, provided the economic and scientificdrivers for the initial focus on wetlands duringthe 1960s. This scientific and technical support wasso substantial that it convinced the politicians andImage: T.Salathé/RamsarExperts visit a floodplain restoration area in Germany where the Kander river enters the Rhine, part of the Transboundary Ramsar Site ‘Oberrhein’[ 248 ]