ABOVE: Elkhorn Slough is shown along Elkhorn Road. (Tarmo Hannula/Pajaronian file)
ELKHORN SLOUGH — On the morning of Oct. 5, Congressman Jimmy Panetta, California State Senator Bill Monning, State Assemblymember Mark Stone, and representatives from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, California Department of Fish and Wildlife will be at Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve’s Hester Marsh to celebrate the designation of Elkhorn Slough as a Wetland of International Importance by the Secretariat of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.
Hester Marsh is the site of a $6.5 million, 61-acre tidal wetland project that is restoring drowning marshes to elevations needed to support tidal marsh habitat that will withstand changes in sea level over the next century.
With this recognition, Elkhorn Slough joins 38 other wetland sites in the United States, and more than 2,330 sites worldwide, in a network of globally important wetlands designated under the world’s oldest international environmental treaty. The Convention was signed in Ramsar, Iran in 1971, and almost 90 percent of U.N. member states have since adopted the treaty.
The designation ceremony will take place at the Elkhorn Slough Reserve’s Hester Marsh. Attendees can enter at Moonglow Dairy at 357 Dolan Rd. in Moss Landing.
The ceremony will take place on Oct. 5, from 9:30 -11 a.m.
For information visit elkhornslough.org.
