A new report on the state of Australia's Ramsar wetlands shows huge problems in the protection and management of our Ramsar wetlands, say the Australian Greens.

"In the face of drastic climate change, we need to be ensuring that our wetland areas are adequately monitored and protected, to support the unique ecosystems they provide. These are wetlands of international significance: if we can't protect these, then there is little hope for our other wetlands," said Australian Greens water spokesperson, Senator Rachel Siewert.

Senator Siewert made her comments on World Wetlands Day, following the release of the Ramsar Snapshot Study.

"This report focuses on the administration of reporting systems, detailing how many wetlands sites exist and how many plans are in place, but contains very little hard data on the actual state of health of our wetlands. We still don't know the true picture of our wetlands' health."

"It is clear that there are big gaps in our knowledge of our wetland areas and that what is needed is systematic, ongoing monitoring and reporting of wetland health. Whilst important, this reporting alone will achieve little if it is not backed up by real action - we need adequate enforcement and the resources to manage proper wetland repair and recovery," said Senator Siewert.

"We have already seen wetland areas where we have known a good deal about their poor states of health (such as the Coorong or Macquarie marshes), and yet governments still failed to act."

Australia has by far the most Ramsar sites in which human-induced negative changes have occurred, are occurring, or are likely to occur.

"At the same time we see the Department of Environment claiming difficulty in ‘securing sufficient human and financial resources to implement the [Ramsar] Convention consistently and effectively.'"

"It is clear that much more is needed to protect our wetland areas," she concluded.

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