Korea is among countries where the number of protected wetlands will increase dramatically.

The 10th Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Convention on Wetlands on Thursday introduced the draft Ramsar Strategic Plan 2009-2014, which specifies measures to implement the international treaty for wetlands conservation for the next six years.

The Ramsar plan consists of 27 strategies in five areas and proposes 74 objectives to be satisfied by 2014. One of them is to increase the number of wetland sites on the Ramsar list to more than 2,500 of altogether 250 million ha around the world. Currently, 1,822 wetlands on 169 million ha are registered as Ramsar sites.

Korea will increase wetlands on the Ramsar list to 16 from the current 11 by 2012. It will also add 10 more sites to the list of the government-protected wetland areas by 2012. Currently, 20 sites (279.637 sq. km), including Woopo wetland and Nakdong River estuary, are on the list.

The government is especially keen to strengthen protection of coastal wetlands, including designating more than 20 percent of the nation’s coastal wetlands as protected areas by 2017. For now, 6.8 percent, or 172.5 sq. km of the total 2, 550 sq. km of coastal wetlands are under the government’s protection.

Kim Ji-tae, a director-general of nature conservation at the Environment Ministry, said, “We will strengthen wetlands conservation, including establishing a database on wetland ecosystems across the country by 2012 and adopting a ‘no loss of wetlands’ policy to maintain the total size of wetlands by creating new wetlands when existing wetlands are lost in land development.

(englishnews@chosun.com )