The Ramsar Archives The Ramsar Archives
The Ramsar Bulletin Board
2
October 1997
Headline
Story: Wetlands
on Fire. Taking
advantage of a number of experts present in the Bureau during the Standing Committee
meetings this week, the Convention has issued an important statement on the
disastrous peat fires currently burning in Southeast Asia. Readers from the
Ramsar community are encouraged to use the statement, or borrow from it, and
spread the message as widely as possible. [3/10/97]
Same
Headline Story as Yesterday, but lower down today.
The Standing Committee's [still] here!, and
still up to mischief :-). In its second day of deliberations, Tuesday the 1st
of October, the SC advised the Bureau on continued development of its electronic
communications efforts (like what you're reading now); firmed up planning for
World Wetlands Day 1998 and for the 1st Ramsar Wetland Conservation Award, to
be presented at the 7th COP; studied progress in creating the Ramsar "communications
outreach center" in Evian, France; examined recent work of the Scientific
and Technical Review Panel; suggested further actions for building upon Ramsar
cooperation with the Convention on Biological Diversity; and called for renewed
efforts for the designation of new Wetlands of International Importance, as
an essential first step towards their conservation and wise use. The rapporteur
got 49 pages of notes out of this session and, if matters continue as erst they
have begun, will need a U-Haul trailer to carry today's notes away with him.
[2/10/97]
Who's Where?
New
on the Site: The famous RamsarSpeak
glossary in French ("Ramsar Lingua"); an excellent paper
on "Wetlands in the World's Arid Zones", soon to be presented
to the 1st COP of the Convention to Combat Desertification in Rome--you can
see it first right here in English, French,
or Spanish, your choice; updated Lists
of Contracting Parties and Ramsar
sites; New list of upcoming Ramsar-related
meetings (three languages); Report
on the Bureau's trip to Russia, 1-7 September; Report
on the Tallinn conference just completed; the Bureau's
report on the succession of Montreal meetings on biodiversity of inland
water systems, and the Summary Report
of Wetlands International's Partnership Workshop. [25/9/97]
Spain names two new sites. And they are Embalse de Las Cañas (101 hectares) and Laguna de Pitillas (216 hectares), both in the Autonomous Region of Navarra, dated 18 November 1996 and only added now because of incomplete paperwork. Both have been designated for the List primarily because of their importance for nesting and wintering water birds. An EU LIFE project is under way at the Laguna de Pitillas, with the aim of improving habitat management of the site. Visitor centres have recently been constructed at both sites. [30/9/97]
Staff
News. Mr Stefan Niederberger (Swiss/French)
has been recruited to the Bureau as Assistant to the Deputy Secretary General,
Bill Phillips, and will take up his new duties during this week. Stefan has
worked on projects in Thailand, Cambodia, China, Viet Nam, Burkina Faso, Senegal,
and Mali -- inter alia! A native French speaker, he is also fluent
in English and conversant in German and Chinese. He replaces Maria Rodriguez,
who will be sadly missed. [29/9/97]
1997
World Disaster Reduction Campaign. The United Nations
International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction Secretariat announces the
1997 Internet Conference on the "socio-economic impact of water-related
disasters". The conference is part of the 1997 World Disaster Reduction
Campaign on "Water: too much ... too little ... leading cause of natural
disasters." The "conference" is taking place between 22 September
and 24 October 1997, and interested readers can participate in this new e-mail
discussion group by sending a message to <listserv@thecity.sfsu.edu> with
the message <subscribe risk [firstname][lastname]>. The Conference Web
site can be found at http://www.quipu.net:1997/. (Communicated to the Bureau
by Nicole Appel for Natalie Domeisen, IDNDR Secretariat, 25/9/97).
Monaco
becomes the 103rd Contracting Party! Monaco has acceded
to the Convention, as amended by the Paris Protocol and the Regina Amendments,
dated 20 August 1997, so that the treaty will come into force for Monaco on
20 December 1997. The principality's first Ramsar site, as yet unnamed, covers
about 10 hectares of coastline and shallow marine water stretching eastward
from the casino, and accounts for more than 5% of the total area of the country
(192 hectares). Welcome to the people of Monaco! [24/9/97]
Workshop
on legal aspects proposed. The Conference of the Contracting
Parties has frequently drawn attention to the importance of understanding the
national legal frameworks within which implementation of the Convention must
be carried out. In order to further that goal, the IUCN Environmental Law Programme
has proposed holding a "Workshop on Legal and Institutional Aspects of
Wetland Conservation and Wise Use" prior to the San José COP7, at which
technical recommendations would be developed to lay the foundation for a possible
resolution by the COP. Further details on the project will be posted here as
they develop. [22/9/97]
Moratorium
on Internship Applications. The Ramsar Internship
Program has turned out to be fabulously successful, and the interns recruited
so far have been making enormous contributions to the work of the Convention.
But responding to applications has been occupying nearly as much staff time
as we've gained, and the Bureau has to ask that interested parties hold back
on inquiries until a couple of months before the next opening date for their
region. The great danger is that staff will spend more time pushing paper back
at people than saving wetlands, we don't want that. [25/9/97]
New
Wetland Policy for Western Australia. Western Australia
has come up with a new wetland policy for that jurisdiction in harmony with
the National Wetland Policy announced earlier this year at federal level. Bill
Phillips, the Bureau's Senior Coordinator for Policy and Technical Affairs,
assesses its significance in this brief
report. [18/9/97]
Eurosite
annual meeting. The
Annual Meeting of Eurosite is being held this week on the Ile de Ré, off the
French Atlantic Coast near La Rochelle. The theme this year is "The role
of managers and the impact of protected areas on the surrounding natural environment".
The organization of the meeting is in the hands of the Eurosite secretariat,
located with the "Conservatoire du Littoral", with which the Ramsar
Bureau has a very close relationship. Eurosite brings together the managers
of a number of outstanding protected areas in Europe, some of them Ramsar sites.
There will also be discussion of twinning of similar sites, a major item in
the Ramsar Strategic Plan. Because of the close concordance of interest, the
Ramsar Bureau will be represented by Senior Policy Advisor, Michael Smart. [17/9/97]
Staff
News. Dr Bill Phillips of Australia has arrived
to take up his post as Senior Coordinator for Policy and Technical Affairs and
will spend two weeks of overlap time with Michael Smart, who leaves the Bureau
at the end of the month. Two Ramsar interns, Raquel
Sigüenza de Micheo and Ms Ahoua Traore, arrived today and will begin
working productively as soon as we can get their computers set up. Jamshed
Kazi, the next intern for Asia, spent several days in the Bureau getting
used to things, and will join the team, first at the Kuala Lumpur meeting next
month and then back here in Gland on the first of November. [17/9/97]
Bienvenidos
to the Web site of the Parque Natural de la Albufera, a Ramsar
site near Valencia in Spain; an excellent site with up-to-date information and
good pictures. Recommended for a long look; dial it up at http://www.civila.com/albufera/panatu.html.
[17/9/97]
Wetlands
in Europe. A
major international conference "Nature Conservation in a Europe of Unification"
is being hosted in Tallinn by the Estonian Ministry of Environment from 11-13
September. Tim Jones, the Ramsar Regional Coordinator for Europe, has been invited
to make a presentation (Sneak Preview:
here's an abstract). Other invited speakers include representatives of the
European Union, WWF International, UNEP Regional Office for Europe, IUCN 'Parks
for Life' and technical specialists from many countries in Western and Eastern
Europe. One of the main aims of the conference is to share experience and to
identify common conservation opportunities in the still-evolving "new Europe".
[10/9/97]
News
from China. Reprint of a very brief front-page
article from the English-language China Science and Technology Newsletter,
30 August 1997, on the P.R. of China's progress in wetland conservation. [12/9/97]
Position vacancy at Wetlands International -
AEME: Waterbird Conservation Officer. This
could be you! Read the announcement here. [11/9/97]
Good
book, cheap at the price. Wetlands International-Asia
Pacific is making the ca.250-page book Community Involvement in Wetland
Management: Lessons from the Field (ed. Gordon Claridge and Bernard
O'Callaghan) available for free download from their Web site (http://ngo.asiapac.net/wetlands).
Conceived as a complement to Ramsar's Towards the Wise Use of Wetlands
(1993), the new book is a manual of guidelines for practitioners based on case
studies presented at the International Conference on Wetlands and Development,
held in Kuala Lumpur in October 1995, which provided a wide-ranging survey of
many practical aspects of community involvement, and it includes 14 detailed
case studies. The file is 927kb self-extracting Adobe Acrobat PDF file, so those
who do not already have the free Acrobat Reader on their own computers will
also need to grab that from the Adobe Web site. This book is worth the trouble!
[5/9/97]
Papua New
Guinea visit. Roger Jaensch
of Wetlands International - Oceania, in conjunction with Job Opu, DEC
Wetlands Officer, and John Aruga, Assistant
(Southern Region) to the DEC Director of Field Services, recently led a mission,
30 July-2 August, to visit Lake Kutubu, Papua New Guinea, to assess landowner
attitudes to Ramsar-listing, check and add to the draft Ramsar Information Sheet,
and identify actions to support the listing process. The mission was funded
by a grant of 2,000 Swiss francs from the Ramsar Bureau.
Lake Kutubu is a freshwater lake in limestone karst country in PNG's Southern Highlands. It supports at least 10 fishes that are endemic to the lake and a significant subsistence fishery. A major oil and gas development is situated in the vicinity and will shortly begin extraction from the lake's catchment. The lake and catchment are in the customary ownership of about 2,500 people who obtain subsistence livelihood from the lake and surrounding rainforest.
The principal achievements of the visit were the confirmation of suitability, landowner interest/ agreement, locally-based support (WWF), and accuracy of the draft Ramsar datasheet; the collection of new data (7 new waterbird species; several new aquatic plants) for the lake; and the identification of landowner and sponsor (WWF) concerns and necessary actions to progress listing as PNG's second Ramsar site. (reported by Wetlands International-Asia Pacific's Keep in Touch (http://ngo.asiapac.net/wetlands) [4/9/97]
Ramsar
at SBSTTA3. Michael Smart has been in Montreal representing
Ramsar at the "biodiversity of inland water systems workshop" at Global
Biodiversity Forum 8, and the successful outcome of that meeting is to be presented
by Edward Maltby on 2 September to the 3rd meeting of the Subsidiary Body on
Scientific, Technical, and Technological Advice of the Convention on Biological
Diversity, which is preparing its input on inland water systems to the 4th COP
of the CBD slated for Bratislava in May 1998. Mike is serving as a panelist
at SBSTTA3 and presented an opening statement on the Ramsar Convention on 1
September -- here's the text of his brief
speech. [3/9/97]
New
head in Australia. A new director has been named for
the Wetlands, Waterways, and Waterbirds Unit of Environment Australia, Mr Brendan
Edgar, formerly Director of the Natural Heritage Trust Section of
Environment Australia, Biodiversity Group. He will be replacing Bill
Phillips, who has just arrived at the Bureau in Switzerland to take
the post of Ramsar's Senior Coordinator for Policy and Technical Affairs. [3/9/97]
Sweden
studies its Ramsar sites. Sweden's Environmental Protection
Agency, the Stockholm-based Administrative Authority for the Convention, has
recently produced a 21-page report reviewing the protection status of the country's
30 Ramsar Sites, which together cover 382,750 hectares. Compiled by Mr Torsten
Larsson, the EPA's focal point on Ramsar issues, the report provides up-to-date
information on national and EU protected area designations, land ownership,
and implementation of management plans at Swedish Wetlands of International
Importance. Amongst the report's conclusions:
Vacancy
at Wetlands International - Asia Pacific. The Wetlands
International - Asia Pacific office in Kuala Lumpur has an immediate vacancy
for the following new key post. Technical Programme
Director: Required to enhance, lead, and monitor the organization's
well established technical and training activities throughout the Asia Pacific
region; seeking a recognized technical specialist (minimum 10 years' experience)
from the natural resources/environment sector with a thorough understanding
of wetland issues.
Reply to: Administration Manager, Wetlands International - Asia Pacific, IPSR, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA (e-mail: wiap@wiap.nasionet.net, URL: http://ngo.asiapac.net/wetlands, fax : +60 3-7571225). [27/8/97 from the Ramsar Forum] [The position has since been filled.]
More to follow. Watch this space.
Feedback and suggestions 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.
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