Wetlands are areas of land that are a combination of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Inland wetlands include creeks, swamps, marshes, and shallow aquifers while coastal wetlands include estuaries, tidal basins, marshes, deltas and mangroves. These water covered areas are biologically diverse and provide a habitat for a wide variety of fish, amphibians, water fowl and other birds, insects, and mammals. 

Today is the United Nation's International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, a day dedicated to raising awareness about the need to eradicate poverty.

Approximately 1.1 billion people live in extreme poverty, which is commonly defined as living on less than US$1 a day. People living in poverty often have inadequate access to health care, clean drinking water, a stable and regular food supply, education, and human security.

Muhammad Yunus wins the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his groundbreaking work in microfinance. Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, developed the idea of extending credit to the underserved population of rural poor. The Grameen Bank's success in Bangladesh has inspired similar microfinance projects to be replicated around the world.

In other social enterprise news, the Columbia Business School hosted a conference on Social Enterprise last Friday. EarthTrends intern, Rhys Thom, posted his personal summary of the event on NextBillion.net, WRI's blog on development through enterprise.

The United Nations' Millennium Development Goals Indicators website is the official location to access data and information related to the 48 indicators used to track progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It has been recently updated with some very useful new materials. Some of these resources include:

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a set of 8 goals that were agreed upon by United Nations Member States in September 2000 following the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. The combined objective of the Millennium Development Goals is to address the problem of underdevelopment and eradicate poverty.