Environmental Science For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 22

Ten International Agreements on Planetary Stewardship

One of the biggest challenge Earth citizens face is how to effectively work together to protect, conserve, and sustainably use resources. Within a single country it may be simple enough to pass laws protecting clean water or a particular species, but nature knows no borders, at least no political ones. Rivers flow and species travel across many nations. And, of course, the atmosphere and the oceans are shared by everyone.

Although no governing body regulates the actions of every nation on Earth, different nations have come together on their own accord to create international agreements about how to maintain and care for the Earth’s natural resources. These international agreements and treaties are often drafted during large meetings, or conventions, that representatives from various interested nations attend. The focus may be on restricting pollutants and toxins, conserving biodiversity and habitat, or tackling climate change. In this section, I describe a few of these international conventions and the resulting agreements. In every case, these agreements show that working together is the best, and perhaps only, path to a sustainable future for humanity on planet Earth.

The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands

The goal of the Ramsar Convention is to protect and conserve wetland resources. In 1971, representatives from multiple nations met in the Iranian city of Ramsar and signed a treaty that recognized “wetlands of ...