Namibia has designated its fifth Ramsar Site!

update (14 Feb 2014): The official launch of Namibia's 5th Ramsar Site will take place today (14 Feb 2014). 

Namibia has designated its fifth Ramsar Site. The Lower Okavango River and its associated woodlands in the Bwabwata National Park, known as Bwabwata–Okavango, is the country's fifth Ramsar Site. Located in Namibia's northern Kavango region, parts of the southern boundary of the 46,964 ha site are contiguous with the northern boundary of the Okavango Delta Ramsar Site in Botswana.
The Bwabwata–Okavango, home to IUCN Red-Listed species such as elephants, hippos, lions as well as slaty egrets and the endangered grey crowned cranes, supports one of the highest diversities of species in the Zambezian Flooded Savannas ecoregion. Over 400 species of birds have been recorded, the highest number of any site in Namibia. Namibia's other four Ramsar Sites include the Orange River Mouth, the Sandwich Harbour, Walvis Bay Lagoon and the Etosha Pan.


View Namibia's 5th Ramsar site: Bwabwata – Okavango in a larger map

The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, adopted in the Iranian city of Ramsar in 1971, is an intergovernmental treaty that embodies the commitments of its member countries to maintain the ecological character of their wetlands by providing a framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of these fragile ecosystems and their resources.