The
Ramsar Archives 
2 February 1998
World Wetlands Day
Headline Story: It's World Wetlands Day, of course. The big news today, of course, is World
Wetlands Day, the anniversary of the signing of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands in 1971.
We have a list of activities planned for WWD in nearly 50 countries, and this
includes only the plans reported to the Bureau -- just the tip of the iceberg (not an
inapt metaphor in the northern countries today). And the Bureau is celebrating WWD
by launching a number of new initiatives, including the Wetland Experts Database,
the Wise Use Resource Centre, the Evian Project, and the
Wetland Conservation Award. Find out more about all of these things
by backing out of these frames and punching the button next to the blinking red WWD
entries on our home page. [2/2/98]
Another Important Story: France names excellent new site.
The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced the designation of the Baie
de Somme, on the coast of the Picardie Region in northeast France, as its 18th
Ramsar site. The site covers 17,000 ha and includes the largest-remaining natural estuary
of the northwest European coastline between the Baie du Mont Saint Michel (already a
Ramsar site) to the west and the Netherlands to the east. Amongst the mosaique of habitats
which make up the site are extensive intertidal sand and mud flats and salt-marsh. Part of
the site (3,000 ha) was designated as a Natural Reserve in 1994. Human activities include
extensive sheep grazing, shell-fish harvesting, hunting (outside of the Natural Reserve),
tourism, and traditional fishing. More than 100,000 people visit the ornithological park
at 'Marquenterre' each year. Most of the surrounding area is used for livestock rearing.
The Baie de Somme qualifies for Ramsar listing under many of the Convention criteria
(1a,1b,2a,2b,2c,2d,3b,3c), but is most well-documented in relation to its international
importance for migratory water birds. Amongst a number of factors mentioned in the Ramsar
Information Sheet as 'threats and disturbances' are the gradual silting-up and
eutrophication of the bay, the impact of moto-cross vehicles, and the continuing presence
of World War Two mines. [31/1/98]
New
on the Site: A
whole new section of this Web site devoted to the Bureau's new initiatives launched
on World Wetlands Day, and the beginnings of a new section called the Wise Use
Resource Centre; volume II (Asia and Oceania) of the 1993 Directory of Wetlands
of International Importance, in the Ramsar Library; the Bureau's
plagiarizable background paper on World Wetlands Day and the Secretary
General's short, punchy message of encouragement [with buttons to French
and Spanish versions of both] as well as Doug
Hulyer's WWD fact sheet, filled with scary water stats that can't really
be read in one sitting without the spectre of Suicide raising its Ghastly Head.
[2/2/98]
Coming Soon: The Africa volume of the 1993 Directory; reprints of some of the technical publications promised in the Wise Use Resource Library;
Who's Where . . . . .
Delmar Blasco, the Secretary General, returned tonight (Friday) from a meeting of the Spanish national Ramsar committee in Barcelona, and leaves Saturday night for Pretoria to attend the Southern African Ramsar Subregional Meeting next week.
Secretary
General's visit in South America. In
late December 1997 and the first half of January '98, Mr Delmar Blasco combined
home leave in Argentina with extensive contacts and meetings in Brazil, Peru,
and Argentina. Here is a brief
summary of his meetings. [27/1/98]
Last Announcement on this Subject: Economic Valuation of Wetlands in Spanish, now on the
stands. After a very long
year's travails in the various languages, the Spanish version of the Valuation book
(already available in the Ramsar Library on this Web site) has appeared from the printers
and can be purchased from the IUCN Publication Services Unit in the UK. A limited
number of copies, thanks to the generous support of the banque Caixa Catalunya in
Barcelona, are available for free distribution from the Bureau, especially to developing
countries. [Hint:
Whoever you are, write in and we'll get one to you.] [23/1/98]
Ramsar Bureau staff news.
Database expert added as part-time
consultant. This morning the Secretary General released this note
concerning A. J. Hails, who edited our recently-published book on
wetlands biodiversity and has successfully created the Wetland Experts Database on a
consultancy basis: "I am delighted to advise that Sandra Hails has agreed to
accept an offer to continue working with us as a part-time consultant over a period of
time. She will continue to maintain, operate, and expand the Experts database to be
launched on World Wetlands Day. Also, as a priority task, she will be setting up our
central database of mailing lists and contacts - a much-needed communications tool for us
all. After this task is done, I envisage Sandra continuing with us to take on some of the
discrete project activities from the Bureau's Communications and Awareness Raising Action
Plan." It's about time somebody took all these mailing lists in hand! [23/1/98]
Wetlands
International AEME launches Web site.
We are
delighted to forward the news the Wetlands International - Africa, Europe, Middle
East has launched its own Web site at http://www.wetlands.agro.nl/. [update:
http://www.wetlands.org] "The site
contains background information on the organization; information on technical
programme activities; publications and reports; upcoming meetings; key links
to other wetland-related sites; news from the AEME region and detailed information
on the 2nd International Conference on Wetlands and Development to be held later
this year. . . . Future developments on the site will include the introduction
of a wetlands search tool and on-line access to the Ramsar Wetland Sites Database."
Info from Simon Nash (nash@wetlands.agro.nl). [20/1/98]
Wetland Action Asia meeting postponed. "The Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment,
Malaysia, regrets to announce that it has had to postpone the meeting, planned for 16-20
February 1998, as a consequence of the currency turmoil which has affected the Southeast
Asia region." Malaysia has invited the Bureau to identify another host country for
the event, and the Bureau hopes to be able to announce a new venue and date soon.
[20/1/98]
Wetlands
International Staff News: Tim Dodman, AEME
Africa Programme Development Officer, is departing the Wageningen headquarters
and moving to or near Dakar, Senegal, to help establish the new regional project
for West Africa, up and running from about 15 February (no e-mail address yet).
In the meantime, Africa Programme issues can be addressed to Cor de Vaan
vaan@wetlands.agro.nl or Claire Nivet nivet@wetlands.agro.nl . Faizal
Parish, Director of Wetlands International - Asia Pacific, is going
on sabbatical leave to write a book, and new administrative arrangements are
still being worked out in the Kuala Lumpur headquarters. [21/1/98]
New
Book. Waterfowl
Population Estimates (2nd ed.), by P.M. Rose and D.A. Scott. Price
UK£10.00. Wetlands International has just published the second edition of Waterfowl
Population Estimates, the source reference for the 1% levels of all the
waterbird populations of the world, which form the basis for application of
Ramsar Criterion 3c for the identification of wetlands of international importance.
The publication is a direct response to Resolution VI.4, which inter alia "CALLS
ON Contracting Parties to use these estimates and thresholds, upon their publication,
as a basis for designation of sites for the List of Wetlands of International
Importance in the succeeding three triennia." Copies of the publication
can be ordered from NATURAL HISTORY BOOK SERVICE LTD quoting NHBS Order #
56837 at 2–3 Wills Road, Totnes, Devon TQ9 5XN. U.K. (tel: + 44-1803-865913,
fax: + 44-1803-865280, e-mail: nhbs@nhbs.co.uk,
Web: http://www.nhbs.com). [20/1/98]
Anada Tiéga joins the Bureau.
Mr Anada Tiéga has taken up his duties in the
Ramsar Bureau as Regional Coordinator for the African region, replacing Tom Kabii, who is
returning to university for further studies in Perth, Australia. Mr Tiéga has a BS from
the University of Niamey and an MSc in Forest-Watershed Management from the University of
Arizona in Tucson, USA; he also has more than 17 years' professional experience in
formulation of conservation and sustainable use strategies at local, national, and
regional level, management of technical programmes, and negotiation with government
organizations and multilateral financial institutions, as well as expertise in technical
subjects related to forestry, arid lands, wildlife and protected areas, and wetlands
management. Fluent in Hausa and French, Mr Tiéga also speaks and writes excellent
English. He has been serving as IUCN Country Representative in Niger since 1992 and has
been IUCN's Regional Coordinator for West Africa. We welcome our new colleague to the
secretariat. [14/1/98]
Year-end Ramsar Web statistics. Dan Hinckley, electronic communications coordinator at
IUCN, compiles monthly statistics on the IUCN Web site, of which Ramsar's site is a part,
and now he's just come up with stats for all of 1997. The Ramsar homepage,
"/index.html", took about 15,000 hits over the year, in 11,000 user sessions;
monthly hits to the main entry page have progressed from 600 or so early in the year to
about 2,200 hits per month at present. The most popular Ramsar areas, by crude hit
counts, have been the What's New and Bulletin Board pages, the Key Documents section,
About Ramsar, Ramsar Links, and the Ramsar List download page in that order. We have
offered the Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance as a download in Adobe
Acrobat PDF format since February 1996, but in May 1997 we began offering the unwieldy
thing in five other common formats as well. The List was downloaded by 772 people in 1997,
in these proportions: 41.0% in Adobe PDF, available over the whole 12 months, then
(though available only over the past 7 months), 33.0% in Microsoft Word 7.0 for Windows
95, 10.2% in Microsoft Word 2.0 for Windows 3.1, 6.0% in Microsoft Word 5.1 for Macintosh,
5.7% in WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS, and 3.9% in Microsoft crossplatform RTF format. [14/1/98]
Mongolia
joins the Ramsar Convention. The
Bureau is delighted to announce that on 8 December 1997 Mongolia
deposited with the Director-General of UNESCO its instrument of accession as
the 106th Ramsar Contracting Party, and the Convention will come
into force for Mongolia on 8 April 1998. Mongolia’s first Wetland of International
Importance is the 210,000-hectare Mongol Daguur (Mongolian Dauria) in
Eastern Mongolia near the border with Russia, and further
details are available here. [7/1/98]
OECD Guidelines for Aid Agencies . . . . Recommendation 6.16 (Brisbane, 1996) welcomed the
presentation made at Ramsar COP6 by representatives of the OECD of the "Guidelines
for Aid Agencies for Improved Conservation and Sustainable Use of Tropical and
Sub-Tropical Wetlands" (1996), prepared for the OECD by IUCN, and urged the
Ramsar Standing Committee to seek comments about the Guidelines from the Contracting
Parties and present the results to the 7th COP. The Standing Committee’s
Decision 19.28 (November 1996) requested the Bureau to solicit such comments about the
Guidelines from the Contracting Parties and present the results to the Standing Committee.
In Decision 20.24 (October 1997), the SC expressed its gratitude to IUCN for having
arranged for a Spanish translation of the Guidelines and requested the Ramsar Bureau to
assist IUCN in distributing these texts as widely as possible.
IUCN and the OECD have been proceeding with the distribution of these texts in English, French, and Spanish for some time already, but the Ramsar Bureau would like now to invite readers of this page to request a copy of the 80-page booklet from us if they have not yet got their copies. This is no. 9 in the OECD Development Assistance Committee’s "Guidelines on Aid and Environment" series, entitled in French "Lignes directrices établies à l’intention des organismes d’aide pour une meilleure préservation et une utilisation durable des zones humides tropicales et subtropicales", and in Spanish, "Directrices para Organismos de Ayuda para majorar la conservación y el uso sostenible de los humedales tropicales y subtropicales." Please send your request to Valerie Higgins and don’t forget your postal address and the language-version required. [8/1/98]
Spanish and French editions of
the Economic Valuation book. The famous
Economic Valuation of Wetlands: a guide for policy makers and planners
(Ramsar, 1997), by Edward Barbier, Mike Acreman, and Duncan Knowler, was published in book
form in May 1997 and also made available on this Web site in November 1997. The French translation by Danièle
Devitre has now been published in book form and is available for sale from IUCN
Publications Services in Cambridge, and an HTML version has also been posted on this
Web site. The Spanish
translation by Juan Carlos Valdovinos is
also being published in book form, with financial assistance from the bank Caixa Catalunya, España, in Barcelona, and will be available by mid-January
1998, and it too has been published in HTML on this Web site as of last week -- click on
the Ramsar Library button on our home page and proceed directly to it. [5/1/98]
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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