Why join WWN?

The WWN Grey Globe Award (2012) was the strongest driver we’ve ever had in Lake Tota’s governance. Its impact remains even today, nearly a decade after, and it has been mentioned numerous times in academic papers. It marked a before-and-after in our civil society involvement in the lake’s integrated management. And it marked a definitive head turn from our various government offices too, to recognize its importance, not only local, regional or national, but also international. Before all that, it was a lake, but afterwards, it became a lake and wetland of international importance (not yet a Ramsar site, but we’re closer to that).

And this was not a minor thing, because it gradually brought up more attention, resources, and general interest from our society, and a variety of partners. Problems are many and are still there, but we’re better prepared to face the challenge, in a big portion thanks to WWN’s early encouragement and solidarity.

Our first contact as an NGO with WWN was back in December 2010. Since then, it’s been a fluent source of information, knowledge, contacts, ideas, recommendations. It all began when we didn’t even know our lake was a wetland! We just didn’t know what a wetland was! And we had no idea either about Ramsar. WWN has been our wetland school in many ways. Wetland globes are not active anymore, but WWN is constantly in search for new ideas to make people better connected with wetlands.

And of course, behind the name and logo, there are people. Those behind WWN have been always fantastic people with us, and we feel fortunate and grateful to have met WWN right at the beginning of our path as NGO. Yet, it has not come easy. This is to say, we as NGO need to be persistent, and patient, because results don’t come that quick as we all would love them to. The good message, and we know it by experience, is that we can have an ideal wetland friend at WWN if we persist, and if we also give of course – a good deal of time and commitment from us is clearly necessary too, because a network is a multi-way relationship of solidarity, to make it worthy for one and for all. If our story gives you some encouragement to jump and join WWN, wait no longer and let’s contact the team!

Felipe Velasco
Fundación Montecito
Colombia

08^th Nov, 2021