Monday 2 February 2009 is World Wetlands Day, a day set aside annually to mark the date of the signing of the Convention on Wetlands on 2 February 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar. Celebrated for the first time in 1997, it is a day to realise the important ecological role wetlands play around the globe and to undertake initiatives to further conserve these vital natural resources. One such initiative is the 2nd annual WetlandCare National Art Competition. This year, the competition, run by not-for-profit organisation WetlandCare Australia, shares the theme of World Wetlands Day 2009 — “Upstream-Downstream: wetlands connect us all”. The winners across all artistic categories will be awarded on Sunday 1 February at 2 pm at the Boondall Wetlands Environment Centre, Brisbane, Queensland. Award-winning photographer, natural history publisher and Guest Speaker at the event, Steve Parish OAM, agrees that such profile-raising (and fundraising) “environmental theme days” are critical to helping us appreciate just how important, and how vulnerable, these habitats are.

“Australia now has more than 65 Ramsar-protected wetlands, yet of the continent’s total number of these habitats, more than 95% have suffered some form of environmental degradation...