Despite their importance, wetlands in Mexico have been threatened for decades, and their modification or destruction is terrible. The main threats that hang over these habitats are agriculture, livestock and mass tourism, considered Pedro Ramírez García Armora, from the Mexican Institute of Biology (IB).
Some studies (2019) indicate that the country has 6,331 wetland complexes, of which 142 are considered of international importance; however, to date, 62 percent of these have been lost.
“Added to the previous problem are pollution and the use of herbicides, insecticides, and artificial nutrients that are used to promote crops, in addition to deforestation and climate change that causes different phenomena such as thaws, siltation of wetlands, and, in general, the increase of sea level”, abounded the member of the Aquatic Vegetation Laboratory.
According to information from the Convention on Wetlands, published last December 15th, 35 percent of its global area has been lost from 1970 to 2021, and wetlands are disappearing three times faster than forests, which means that more than one-quarter of the species that live there are threatened with extinction.
Of the 142 zones of international importance in our country, equivalent to a total area of eight million hectares, 80 are related to 69 protected natural areas of a federal nature. It is one of the nations with the most “Ramsar sites” (a name that refers to the Iranian city where the Convention on Wetlands was signed in 1971).
These land areas permanently or seasonally saturated or inundated with water are found almost everywhere on the planet, and are inland (such as aquifers, lakes, rivers, streams, and swamps) and coastal (such as saltwater marshes, estuaries, lagoons, or lagoons). coastlines, seagrass meadows, mangroves, and coral reefs), explained Ramírez García Armora.
TYT Newsroom
