World Wetlands Day 2000
The theme for the World Wetlands Day 2000 was "Celebrating Our Wetlands of International Importance".
In 2000 there were there were 1011 wetlands in 117 countries listed as Wetlands of International Importance. They ranged from the 1 hectare unique mangrove ecosystem on Christmas Island (Australia) to the 6.8 million hectares of the Okavango Delta System in Botswana; from the Rasmussen Lowlands near the Arctic Polar Circle in Canada, to the Atlantic Coast Reserve in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina; from the Skocjan Caves in Slovenia to the Asraq Oasis of Jordan.
The Convention’s target was to have 2000 listed sites by 2005. World Wetlands Day 2000 provided a good occasion to advance towards that target and help to achieve the ‘Vision for the Ramsar List’: "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 ecological and hydrological functions they perform".