What's
New @ Ramsar What's
New @ Ramsar
3
June
2002
Headline
story. English Heritage launches Wetlands Strategy. On
28 May 2002, English Heritage, the Government's statutory adviser on the historic
environment (sponsored by the Ministry for Culture, Media and Sport - DCMS),
organised in London a seminar on the historic environment in England's wetlands
at the occasion of the launch of its Wetlands Strategy, introduced by Adrian
Olivier. A handful of speakers, representing archeology and historical science,
as well as ecology and the administrative bodies responsible for cultural and
natural heritage management (English Heritage, English Nature), covered current
issues, practice and policies for better integrated management decisions and
debated what can be learnt from the past in shaping the future. The Ramsar Bureau
was invited to present the new "Guiding principles for identifying the
cultural aspects of wetlands and incorporating them into the effective management
of sites", proposed to COP8 for adoption. Here
is Tobias Salathé's report on the meeting and the significance of this
new initiative. [03/06/02]
Headline
story. Sweden designates 21 new Ramsar sites.
At the 7th meeting of the Conference of the Parties, in San José in 1999,
Sweden pledged to add 21 new Ramsar sites before the next COP, and it has now
fulfilled that promise. Twenty-one new Wetlands of International Importance,
totaling 125,870 hectares, have been added to the List, and nine of the thirty
existing Swedish Ramsar sites have had their boundaries extended, in some cases
significantly. The new sites are located in nearly all parts of the country
and embody a broad array of wetland types, values and functions, in hydrological
as well as in biological terms. Sweden, now with 51 Wetlands of International
Importance, has leapt past Italy, Ireland, Denmark, Spain, Canada, the Russian
Federation, and Germany to third place in the total number of Ramsar sites (behind
only the UK and Australia) - its total number of hectares under the umbrella
of the Convention is now over half a million, at 514,500. The Convention itself,
with its 131 Contracting Parties, now has 1171 Ramsar sites (with two more already
approved and ready to be added to the List), totaling 96,454,325 hectares.
Brief descriptions of the 21 new Ramsar sites can be seen here, and a list of the previously-announced new site extensions is also available. [30/05/02]
Announcement.
Standing Committee's Subgroup on COP8 meeting report available.
The final report of the Subgroup's
meeting of 15-17 May 2002 is now available (English only) and is being
distributed to members and observers. The decisions themselves from within the
report will soon be available in English, French, and Spanish. The report of
the concurrent Subgroup on Finance meeting will also be available soon, as will
photographs of both meetings. [31/05/02]
Headline
story. Collaboration on the management of Polesie
wetlands in Belarus, Poland, and Ukraine. On 22-24 May 2002, about
140 specialists from Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and other countries,
including representatives of several international organisations and conservation
NGOs, gathered in Minsk, the capital of the Republic of Belarus, for the second
international conference on the ecology and conservation of floodplains and
lowland mires in the Polesie region, exactly five years after the first
conference on this topic in May 1997. The Polesie region is shared among Belarus,
Poland and Ukraine - the Pripyat river forms its central artery, flowing eastwards
to enter the Dniepr soon after crossing the Ukrainian border near ill-starred
Tchernobyl. Tobias Salathé uses the occasion of a report on this
conference to describe the fascinating region, its values, and its issues, with
photos of the Pripyat Ramsar site. Click
here now. [28/05/02]
Who's
where?
Delmar Blasco, Secretary General, is in Indonesia 28 May to 6 June for the 4th Preparatory meeting for the World Summit on Sustainable Development set for Johannesburg, 2 - 11 September 2002. [30/05/02]
Who was where? Cumulated record of travels throughout the year.
New
on the Site: Report
of the Subgroup on COP8's meeting of 15-17 May; Collaborative agreements
with WWF and with SPREP.
[31/05/02]
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WWF and
Ramsar sign collaborative agreement. Throughout the 1960s, the World
Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) was instrumental in negotiations which led to the
signing of the Convention on Wetlands in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971, and over the
many years since that time WWF has been so vitally important in delivering the
Ramsar objectives at global and local levels that the organization has long
been formally recognized as one of the four official "International Organization
Partners" of the Convention (with BirdLife International, IUCN-The World
Conservation Union, and Wetlands International). 
Most
particularly in recent years, amongst many other efforts across the whole organization,
the WWF Living Waters Programme has been exceptionally forthcoming, in terms
of expertise, labor, and funding support, in assisting new accessions of Parties,
designations of new Ramsar sites, and management planning guidance in Africa,
Asia, South America and the news pages of the Ramsar Web site are filled with
tributes to this dedicated collaboration and convergence of goals. Thus it may
seem odd that, in all these years, WWF has been the only Partner with which
the Ramsar Bureau had not got round to concluding a formal collaborative agreement
- but finally that oversight has been put right. On 16 May 2002, in the course
of the Standing Committee's Subgroup meetings in Gland, Switzerland, Dr Claude
Martin, Director General of WWF International, and Delmar Blasco, Ramsar's
Secretary General, signed a Memorandum of Cooperation that lays out plainly
the areas of collaboration and joint commitment. The
text of the MOC and photos of the signing are available here. [24/05/02]
[français et/y español]
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University students participate in wetlands and Ramsar awareness programme in China. WWF has launched its second annual Wetland Ambassadors Action campaign, calling for university students across China to submit proposals for raising awareness amongst government officials, farmers and other stakeholders on the importance and benefits of conserving China's rivers and lakes. The primary goal of the project, supported by WWF, the Ramsar Convention Implementing Office of the State Forestry Bureau (SFA), and China Youth Daily, is to reach out to stakeholders living in or around one of China's 21 Ramsar Sites to increase their support for wetland conservation and sustainable use issues. The project involves university students to implement the campaign. Zhang Yifei of WWF China has provided this summary of the project and its objectives. [24/05/02]
Photos
available. Ramsar
British evening and Highlands haggis hunt. Here at some remove of
time from the original event, finally are revealing photos of haggis and other
carefully-labeled Welsh, English, and Scottish traditional foods and other things
they eat, presented to and consumed rapidly by Ramsar Bureau staff on British
Night, October 2001, available for viewing just before Ramsar Swiss Night, 1
June 2002, which promises to be just as embarrassing. Photos
of Ramsar staff and the haggis hunter wielding a great ugly knife upon the poor
little haggises are available here. [24/05/02]
New
Web site for MedWet. The MedWet Web site has now been renamed
(from www.medwet.gr to www.medwet.org)
and re-structured into a brand new site featuring the latest Web designing techniques.
It has moreover started to be updated again, after a pause of nine months. Inevitably,
the process will be gradual and it will take some time until the Web site is
fully updated. Both your tolerance and your suggestions are requested in order
to fulfil this task. Maria Anagnostopoulou, MedWet Communications Officer;
Panayotis Vroustouris, MedWet webmaster. [23/05/02]
Two
new publications from the Wetlands International Black Sea Programme. Wetlands
International announces the appearance of two new publications on the Black
Sea. Black Sea Wetlands Conservation Priorities,
bearing the fruits of two international workshops, includes descriptions of
the current status of the Black Sea wetlands and their conservation, and priorities
for their conservation with recommended actions. The Directory
of Azov-Black Sea Wetlands consists of an introduction and a series
of national reports, followed by site descriptions of 94 wetlands in Bulgaria,
Georgia, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Turkey, and Ukraine,
32 of which are already Ramsar sites. More
details are available here. [23/05/02]
Prespa
update. The
Third Regular Meeting of the Coordination Committee of the Prespa Transboundary
Park was held in the old Albanian city of Korça on 17-18 May 2002. Here
is a brief report from Ramsar's representative there, Thymio Papayannis.
[24/05/02]
Announcement.
Pre-registration materials for Ramsar COP8. This
week a packet of materials is going out to the Parties which provides information
on registration for the COP, hotel books, visas, exhibit space, excursions,
and lots more. The English and French
versions of these documents are now available here as well, and Spanish
should follow in the next few days. [23/05/02]
SPREP
and Ramsar sign Memorandum of Cooperation. During the Oceania Ramsar
Regional meeting last week, hosted by the South Pacific Regional Environment
Programme (SPREP) in Apia, Samoa, a Memorandum of Cooperation was concluded
between SPREP and the Ramsar Bureau, signed in a brief ceremony by SPREP
Director Tamari'i Tutangata and Dr Nick Davidson, Deputy Secretary General
of the Ramsar Bureau. The MOC provides the basis for increased support by SPREP
and the Ramsar Bureau to the countries and territories of the region, support
which will focus on promoting the sustainable use of wetlands, recognizing and
managing wetlands of international importance, promoting international and regional
cooperation, assisting with resourcing for capacity building and, where appropriate,
promoting accession to the Ramsar Convention. The
text of the MOC, with a photograph of the signing, is available here.
The signing of the MOC is a very important leap forward in the recognition of the importance of wetlands, their values and functions and conservation and wise use in the Pacific, and in particular their importance to the lives of many people in the Pacific Island countries, and of the ways that the Ramsar Convention can help. The participants in the Oceania Regional meeting also contributed to the development of a Joint Work Plan between SPREP and Ramsar, which will give early and practical effect to the MOC. This new JWP, along with a report and photographs of the Oceania Regional meeting, will be posted on the Ramsar Web site shortly. [19/05/02] [français et/y español]
Photos
available. Ramsar Bureau views Swiss Ramsar
sites in the rain. OOoff, bring your slickers and wellies. In a fit
of dread over imminent Standing Committee meetings, the staff of the Ramsar
Bureau motored off on Saturday, 11 May, for a study tour of two Ramsar sites
on Lac de Neuchâtel in Switzerland, expertly organized as usual
by Tobias Salathé and with superb
explanations from Christophe Le Nédic
and Werner Müller on management challenges
at each of the sites and a very nice lunch, with a remarkable salad bar, at
the Hotel du Port of the historical lakeside village of Estavayer-le-lac. For
those of you unable to participate in our Ramsar
Study Tour of the Camargue in France, June 2001, here's still another
one you've missed. But the photos
remain. [20/05/02]
Subgroups
gather now! The 26th meeting of the Ramsar Standing Committee, meeting
late last year, empowered its Subgroup on COP8 and Subgroup on Finance to reconvene
in May and make final dispositions on its behalf for the 8th meeting of the
Conference of the Contracting Parties. And, now, here
they are. The meeting agendae are available here: Subgroup
on COP8, Subgroup
on Finance, and the agenda papers are also available here (COP8,
Finance). Very likely
we'll all be pretty busy for the next few days (receptions, testimonial dinners,
etc.), but we'll let you know what happened as soon as the smoke clears. [15/05/02]
WWT
Darwin project in eastern Africa seeks project officer. The Wildfowl
& Wetlands Trust, the largest international wetland conservation charity
in the UK, have been awarded a grant from the UK Darwin Initiative for the Survival
of Species for a new 3-year project entitled 'Monitoring
biodiversity for site management planning in eastern African wetlands'.
This project involves collaboration with conservation organizations in nine
eastern African countries: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Sudan, Rwanda,
Burundi, Djibouti, and Eritrea; as well as Wetlands International. Dr Seb
Buckton has announced that WWT is presently seeking to employ a Darwin
Project Officer - Eastern Africa, a qualified citizen of the region,
to develop this project and work with organizations in the region. Here is
a brief description of the project and the terms of reference for the position.
[link
later removed] [14/05/02]
Vacancy
announcement. Technical Advisor needed for project in Vietnam. "Technical
Advisor for Natural Resource Management Project In Vietnam". DOF-BirdLife
Denmark is seeking a Technical Advisor for a DANIDA financed ICDP at the
Ke Go Nature Reserve in Ha Tinh Province, in central Vietnam. The project is
part of BirdLife Vietnam Programme. A brief description of this post is available
here [link
later removed] and further details can be got from Anita
Pedersen, anita.pedersen@dof.dk.
Extracto
del Mensaje Inaugural de la Toma de Posesion del Presidente de la Republica
de Costa Rica, el Dr. Abel Pacheco de la Espriella periodo constitucional
Mayo 2002-Mayo 2006. El texto en negrita, marcado por nosotros, es de particular
interés para Ramsar. "COSTA RICA DECLARA LA PAZ PARA LA NATURALEZA".
[14/05/02]
SAP-Bio
meeting. On 6-7 May the MedWet Coordinator, Mr
Spyros Kouvelis, attended the Advisory
Committee meeting of the SAP-Bio project organised by RAC/SPA in Tunis. MedWet
is a permanent member of the Advisory Committee of the project and was elected
chair of the group until the next meeting. SAP-Bio is a project co-financed
by the GEF for developing a regional Strategic Action Plan for the conservation
of coastal and marine biodiversity, for the implementation of the new Protected
Areas Protocol of the Barcelona Convention. Twenty Mediterranean countries participated
in the project, while the Advisory Committee had representations from, besides
MedWet, IUCN (WESCANA and Med offices), Council of Europe, FAO, ACCOBAMS, ETC/NC,
WWF MedPO, and a represenative of the Fisheries Cooperative of Italy (Federcopesca).
The meeting reviewed the progress of the project and the proposed guidelines
for the development of national action plans on coastal birds, fisheries, and
the overall national action plans themselves. Most importantly, the meeting
reviewed the guidelines for the development of the Strategic Action Plan itself.
It is expected to be a quite important document, as it will be presented to
the meeting of the CPs of the Barcelona Convention in 2003, and will be a major
input for deciding the priorities for action and funding by various organisations
on the conservation of coastal biodiversity in the Mediterranean. [13/05/02]
Vacancy
announcement. BirdLife International seeks
Agricultural Campaign Coordinator. "BirdLife International is
a global Partnership of NGOs working to conserve birds, their habitats and global
diversity, working with people towards sustainability in the use of natural
resources. Inside Europe 40 organizations work as part of this alliance. You
are invited to join our small team of committed staff that strives to serve
the European BirdLife Partnership and its goals. This position will be based
in the European Community Office in Brussels." Here is the announcement
and terms of reference [link
later removed] for the new position. [08/05/02]
MedWet/Regions
holds 3rd meeting. On 2-4 May 2002, the 3rd meeting of the MedWet/Regions
network was hosted in Sevilla, Spain, by the regional Ministry of Environment
of Andalucia, Spain, with the objective to finalise the discussion and preparation
of the proposal that will be submitted by the Regions participating in this
network to the INTERREG IIIb MedOC (Mediterranee Occidentale) programme. Find
out more about MedWet/Regions and about this meeting in
this brief report (with photos) from Spyros Kouvelis, the MedWet Coordinator.
[07/05/02]
Wetlands
International wins award for Asia. Alvin Lopez, Regional Technical
Officer (Asia) for Wetlands International in Selangor, Malaysia, wrote to the
Ramsar Forum: "I am pleased to inform you that Wetlands International was
recently awarded the "Asia Water Management Excellence Award 2002"
in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 26 March 2002 for its work in promoting the conservation
of water resources and wetlands." More
detail is available here. [08/05/02]
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CBD and Ramsar Third Joint Work Plan gets under way. Following the successful completion of the 2nd Joint Work Plan (2000-2001) between the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, the 3rd JWP, this one for a longer period of time (2002-2006), has been endorsed by the Ramsar Standing Committee and by the CBD's 6th Conference of the Parties, meeting in The Hague, April 2002. The text, subject to minor editorial improvements, is now available here. [06/05/02]
Advisory
Mission to lake Srebarna, Bulgaria, now available. The Convention
gives special attention to assisting Contracting Parties in the management and
conservation of listed sites whose ecological character is changing or likely
to change as a result of technological development, pollution or other human
interference. This is carried out through the Ramsar Advisory Missions (RAM),
a technical assistance mechanism formally adopted by Recommendation 4.7 (1990),
and it has once before been applied to lake Srebarna in Bulgaria (in 1992),
a Ramsar site presently on the Montreux Record. The World Heritage Committee,
at its 24th session in 2000, after receipt of the "Srebarna Biosphere Reserve
Report 2000" by the Bulgarian Minister of Environment and Water at the
UNESCO World Heritage Centre, thanked and commended Bulgaria for submitting
a comprehensive report and for its efforts to fully rehabilitate the site. The
Committee then requested the Centre and IUCN to cooperate with the Ramsar Convention
Bureau and other suitable partners to field a mission to the site to undertake
a thorough evaluation of the successes of the rehabilitation efforts reported
and their sustainability. This joint World
Heritage/Ramsar/IUCN mission took place in October 2001, and here is the final
report. [07/05/02]
Sweden
enlarges nine Ramsar sites. Effective
19 November 2001, the Government of Sweden designated 21 new Wetlands of International
Importance and expanded the boundaries of nine previously-designated Ramsar
sites. Descriptions of the newly-named sites will appear here soon, but in the
meantime, here is a brief listing of
the new extensions. [02/05/02]
Dojran
Lake - first meeting of the ad hoc working group, 17 April 2002.
Dojran is shared between Greece and FYR Macedonia, and in the past few years
it has suffered a significant fall in the water level, coupled with increased
pollution concentration due to the reduced water volume and increased agricultural
run off. Under the initiative of MedWet, supported by the Greek Biotope/Wetland
Centre (EKBY) and Skopje office of the Germany's aid agency, Deutsche Gesellschaft
für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), a first meeting was held on 11 and
12 December 2001, hosted by EKBY in Thessaloniki and chaired by MedWet. The
ad hoc working group established by that meeting has now had its own first meeting,
and the MedWet Coordinator, Spyros Kouvelis,
describes its outcomes here. [01/05/02]
Announcement.
Waterbird Population Estimates 3rd Edition Consultation Draft.
Scott Frazier writes, "Wetlands International periodically prepares a global
summary of best available information of the status and trends of waterbird
biogeographic populations. Our last published estimates were contained in Waterfowl
Population Estimates 2nd edition (WPE). The Ramsar Convention's Resolution
VI.4 (Brisbane 1996) calls on Contracting Parties to use the estimates and thresholds
in WPE as a basis for designating Ramsar sites under Criterion 6. Now the CONSULTATION
DRAFT of 3rd Edition Waterbird Population Estimates is available on-line. As
always, these estimates have drawn on data compiled through the International
Waterbird Census coordinated by Wetlands International, and the expertise of
our extensive waterbird Specialist Groups network. The consultation period lasts
for 9 weeks, from 26 April to 30 June 2002. Expert
opinion, judgement and amendment are sought! Please see http://www.wetlands.org/news&/NewsItems/WPE3announce.htm.
For additional information on the application of Ramsar Criterion 6 for the
designation of Wetlands of International Importance, see: http://www.ramsar.org/w.n.waterbird_estimates_online.htm."
[30/04/02]
Niger
Basin Authority marks progress in Ramsar designations. A Regional
Workshop of the GEF - Niger Basin Authority (NBA) project on "Reversing
Land and Water Degradation Trends in the Niger River Basin"
was held 15-18 April 2002 in Niamey, Niger, attended by all the NBA member countries
representatives except those from Mali, as well as representatives of inter-African
and international institutions. Its objectives related to issues including the
improvement of the GEF-Niger Basin Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis (TDA) and
the approval of 10 pilot demonstration projects to be undertaken in the Niger
Basin. In ceremonies
associated with the workshop, M. Mohammed Bello Tuga (left), Executive
Secretary of the Niger Basin Authority, signed a letter from the NBA (co-signed
with the Director General of WWF International and the Secretary General of
the Ramsar Convention) to the Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr
Kofi Annan, reporting Guinea's designation of six new Ramsar sites in the
Niger Basin, as called for by Decision 6 of NBA Heads of State and Government
on 16 February 2002. A summary of the meeting, a few photos, and reprints of
some of the documents, including the letter to Secretary General Annan, are
available here, with assistance from Mr Denis Landenbergue of
the WWF Living Waters Programme, who represented the Ramsar Convention in the
meetings. [30/04/02]
European
conference on transboundary waters. "Sustainable
management of transboundary waters in Europe" was the theme
of the international conference convened by the Environment Ministries of Poland,
Finland, and Germany and the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management
of the Netherlands in the Polish coastal resort Miedzyzdroje, from 21-24 April
2002 in honour of the 10th Anniversary of the Convention on the Protection and
Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes of the United Nations
Economic Commission for Europe, also known as the UN-ECE Water Convention (Helsinki,
1992). Tobias Salathé
reports on the objectives and results of the conference and provides
photos of the accompanying Vikings. [26/04/02]
Management
guide for Mediterranean Lagoons. Recently, after three years of intensive
work, the Languedoc-Roussillon Regional Directorate (DIREN) of the French Ministry
of Spatial Planning and Environment published a handbook "Guide méthodologique
de gestion des lagunes méditerranéennes" (in French). This is the impressive
result of collaboration of many university specialists, private scientists,
public authorities, consultancy firms, private institutions and NGOs, working
together under a European Union co-funded LIFE project for the conservation
of the coastal lagoons in the Languedoc-Roussillon region. Ramsar's
Tobias Salathé supplies further detail here. [23/04/02]
Ramsar
Pan-American Pre-COP8 Regional Meeting set for Ecuador. Representatives
of Ramsar Contracting Parties, non-contracting parties, intergovernmental institutions,
and non-governmental organisations will gather in Guayaquil, Ecuador, 1-5 July
2002, for the 2nd Ramsar Pan-American Meeting. The meeting will serve as final
preparation for the Neotropics and North American regions' position before the
8th Meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties to be held in Valencia,
España, 18-26 November 2002. It will be hosted by the Ministry of Environment
of the Republic of Ecuador and the Ramsar Convention Bureau, with the generous
financial assistance of the governments of Canada, Spain, and the United States
of America. Further information,
registration forms, and documents are available here. [18/04/02]
Los representantes de los Países Partes de la Convención de Ramsar, Países no-Parte, organizaciones intergubernamentales y no-gubernamentales se darán cita en Guayaquil, Ecuador, del 1-5 de julio de 2002 para la II Reunión Regional Panamericana. La Reunión servirá como preparación final de la posición de las regiones de Norte América y el Neotrópico para la 8va Conferencia de Partes, a realizarse en Valencia, España, del 18-26 de noviembre de 2002. El anfitrión de la Reunión será el Ministerio del Ambiente del Gobierno del Ecuador, quién se encargará de la organización conjuntamente con la Oficina de la Convención de Ramsar, y con la generosa ayuda financiera de los gobiernos de Canadá, España y los Estados Unidos de América.
Announcement.
Standing
Committee Subgroup documents bobbing to the surface. The 26th Meeting
of the Standing Committee, 3-7 December 2002, gave its approval to many of the
Draft Resolutions and Recommendations to be carefully weighed (and hopefully
approved) by the 8th Meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties in
Valencia, Spain, in November 2002 -- quite a few of these are already available
on our COP8 index page. At
that time, however, many other documents were sent back to the Bureau, the STRP,
and others for further work, and the Standing Committee's
Subgroup on COP8 was authorized to give final approval to these at
its meeting 15-17 May 2002, for transmittal with the COP documentation to the
Contracting Parties and other registrants for COP8. Quite a few of these documents
for the Subgroup's consideration are now
available on this site and more will be arriving in the next few days,
in HTML, PDF, and Word formats. Don't miss this opportunity to wade through
yards of Resolution-English (French and Spanish versions will be prepared for
COP8 following the Subgroup's approval) and see where international wetland
conservation efforts are headed for the next few years. [18/04/02]
More to follow.
Watch this space. Feedback and suggestions are welcome
to: the Ramsar Convention Bureau, Rue Mauverney 28, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland
(tel +41 22 999 0170, fax +41 22 999 0169, e-mail 
).
Updated regularly by Dwight Peck, Ramsar Bureau.
Back
Issues of the Bulletin Board. Early in every month, the current edition
of the Bulletin Board is copied to the Ramsar
Archives page, and you can dig through the back issues there --
their contents are still indexed on the Global
Index page in perpetuity.
visitors to this site since...... Wait . . . . . . Take a number and a plastic
chair -- we'll call you when there's room at the head of the queue.
