February 2 the day set aside each year to commemorate World Wetlands Day. The date marks the anniversary of 1971 adoption of the international convention on wetlands conservation, signed in the Iranian city of Ramsar.
On February 2, 2009 Lake Chapala was officially designated as a Ramsar wetlands site, recognized for its values as a refuge for migratory birds, home to unique endemic species, a vital water source for the Guadalajara metro area and beneficial influence on Mexico’s climate.
And by a decree of Jalisco’s state congress issued in December of last year, February 2 has been also been declared as the Día Estatal del Lago de Chapala. The legislative initiative was proposed by District 17 congressman Jesús Palos Vaca, a former Jocotepec mayor Jocotepec who was seated as the sole Mexico Green Ecology Party representative in the state body.
Palos tells this newspaper that in early in January the legislature instructed its Secretary General to issue notifications to the local governments of all seven lakeshore municipalities to encourage the organization of special activities, events, fairs or festivals in observance of the new state holiday. It appears that neither Chapala nor any of the other municipalities have made plans to celebrate the occasion.
Meanwhile, the comprehensive blueprint for Lake Chapala’s conservation, developed five years ago under Ramsar guidelines, seems to have been forgotten, left to gather dust somewhere in the depths of government bureaucracy.