New Ramsar Sites Designated: Miyajima-numa and Fujimae-higata

Japan's two wetlands, Miyajima-numa in Hokkaido and Fujimae-higata in Aichi Prefecture were added in the List of Wetlands of International Importance on November 18, 2002, the opening day of the 8th Conference of the Contracting parties to the Ramsar Convention held in Valencia, Spain. With these new listings, Japan now has a total of 13 Ramsar sites.

Miyajima-numa is a shallow freshwater lake, which is one of the cutoff lakes left by the nearby Ishikari River in the middle of Hokkaido, surrounded chiefly by rice paddies. The lake is one of the most important staging sites for migratory geese, swans and ducks that breed in the Northern Hemisphere such as Siberia and winter in Japan. More than 50 thousand Greater White-fronted Geese, comparable in number to all geese wintering in the country, stop over in Miyajima-numa.

Fujimae-higata is tidal flat at the mouths of the Shonai, Shinkawa, and Nikko rivers as they flow into the port city of Nagoya. It is the only large-scale tidal flat left in the northern part of Ise Bay. Nagoya City is the first among Japan's twelve major cities to have a Ramsar wetland. This tidal flat is an important staging site for shorebirds including snipes and plovers that migrate between breeding sites in the Northern Hemisphere and wintering sites in the Southern Hemisphere. In the spring of 2002, 11,000 water birds were counted, which was one of the highest shorebird counts in Japan.

Nagoya City once planned fill the entire tidal flat as a dumping site. However, thanks to a protest campaign by citizens' groups that grew into a conservation movement, the city council abandoned the plan in 1999. Today, the site is drawing much attention as a wetland that was saved by people power.

http://www.ramsar.org/cda/ramsar/display/
main/main.jsp?zn=ramsar&cp=1-26-45-87^16979_4000_1__

Posted: 2002/12/12 12:12:27 PM
Japanese version