What's
New @ Ramsar What's
New @ Ramsar
4
October 1998
Headline Story: Ramsar and
RIZA visit Armenia. Like
most right-thinking citizens, you've learned to yawn promptly at the bureaucracy's
long and ubiquitous "trip reports". But Ramsar's
trip reports are different. For example, take
this report of the Bureau's recent trip to Armenia -- it's got nearly everything
you could wish for: succinct background on Armenia's Ramsar history, a quick
but penetrating look at both of its Ramsar sites, a synopsis of the problems
yet to be faced, a capsule itinerary that will make you wish you'd been there,
a lean set of recommendations and action points for follow-up, and some well-chosen
scenic and people photos that will bring the whole thing to life for you, or
almost. Tim Jones of the Bureau and Frank Alberts,
Head of RIZA's Land Use Planning Division, made the trip, 3-11 September of
this year, and here is the result. [29/9/98]
Ex-Headline Story: Wetlands
Conference set for Russian Federation. An
important conference on "A Strategy for wetland conservation in the Russian
Federation" is scheduled for 24-26 February 1999 in Moscow, Russia.
Organized by the State Committee of the Russian Federation on Environmental
Protection and the Wetlands International - Russia Programme, the conference
is intended to bring together representatives from key government agencies,
NGOs, scientific institutions and other stakeholders to review the current state
of wetland conservation in Russia, and to develop A National Strategy and Action
Plan for Wetland Conservation in the Russian Federation. Here's
the announcement. [27/9/98]
Former
Ex-Headline Story: Papua
New Guinea names its 2nd Ramsar site. The
Bureau is delighted to announce the designation of Papua New Guinea’s second
Wetland of International Importance, Lake Kutubu (4,924 hectares), the second
largest lake in PNG and by all accounts one of the most important recent additions
to the Ramsar List. The lake’s extraordinary level of endemicity (10 of
the 14 fish species found there are endemic to the lake itself) exceeds that
of any other lake in the entire New Guinea-Australian region. Find
out more, right here! [version française,
version en español] [25/9/98]
Book.
This may be the book for
you. The Bureau
has received a couple of boxes of the new book, Mediterranean Wetlands:
Socioeconomic Aspects, edited by Nejib Benessaiah
and published by DG XI of the European Commission for the Ramsar Convention
on Wetlands. Very attractively presented and featuring both a wide coverage
of key topics and close looks at five well-known "pilot" wetlands
in the Med Basin, this 165-page book is surely available elsewhere, too, but
we have a number that we can give away to people who will appreciate them and
treat them well and give them a good home. Write to Valerie Higgins
in the Bureau and specify whether you'd like the English, French, or Arabic
edition. [28/9/98]
New
on the Site:
And another, Egypt;
Two more National Reports, Kenya and
the Bahamas, to join Germany and Sweden
posted last week;
Consolidation
of Ramsar Decisions: clickable directory to the Key Concept Index
and the Annotated Strategic Plan [Policy Wonks' Heaven].
[2/10/98]
Who's Where . . . . . . .
Rebecca D'Cruz, RC for Asia, is in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, to participate in the IUCN South & Southeast Asia Regional Conservation Forum (29 September to 2 October). The theme is "Securing our Future in Asia's Changing Environment", and presentations are covering critical conservation issues and donors' presentations on programme priorities in the region. Some 130 participants are expected, ranging from representatives of governments to NGOs to donor agencies.
CMS
renovates its Web site. Carles
Carboneras, Information Officer in the secretariat
of the Convention on Migratory Species in Bonn, notifies us that the CMS has
completely renovated its WCMC-hosted Web site. See this description of
the new site, forum_cms_website.htm,
or better still, check out the genuine article, http://www.wcmc.org.uk/cms.
[25/9/98]
E/PA Workshop at the Ramsar Bureau. The Ramsar Bureau has just hosted a 2-day workshop, 24-25
September, on Education and Public Awareness programmes for wetland conservation
and wise use. Distressed by the disjunction between global efforts to
coordinate E/PA efforts and, on the other hand, the wonderful work being done all the time
here and there, by government agencies and NGOs all over the world, all the time, the
Bureau invited representatives of a number of energetic programmes to stare at one another
across our tables and explain to one another what they're doing - and arrange to share and
cooperate and liaise and get to know one another better in future. Participants
included representatives of GREEN (Global Rivers Environmental Education Network), Water
Watch Asia and Waterwatch Australia, the Ghana Wildlife Society, the IUCN Commission on
Education, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, Wetlands
International's Specialist Group on E/PA, the Watercourse Program/Project WET in the USA,
the People and Conservation Unit of WWF International, Water Planet of Sweden.
Results will appear here later. [25/9/98]
National
Reports to be reprinted here. In
a practice dating from the first Conference of the Parties in 1980, the Contracting
Parties have submitted to each COP their National Reports describing their progress
in implementing the Convention in the triennium since the preceding meeting.
These provide the data for the Regional Overviews which inform the COP
of the general state of the Convention and, since they are public documents,
they inform the public of each Contracting Parties' progress in the conservation
and wise use of its wetlands, or lack thereof. For COP6 (Brisbane, 1996),
for the first time ALL Contracting Parties submitted their NRs, and most of
them on time. For COP7, the Bureau's intention is to reprint them all
here -- quite a few have already been received in the secretariat and are presently
being finalized by the Bureau's Regional Coordinators in consultation with the
Parties. As they are finalized throughout the next few months, we will
prepare them for the Web and post them here as promptly as possible. And
the first two are ready: Germany and Sweden, with many more to come. Here
is the NR index page. [23/9/98]
Connecticut (USA) posts groundbreaking Web page on its Ramsar site.
The State of Connecticut Department
of Environmental Protection has posted an attractive Web presentation of its entire
"nomination report" that gained a place on the Ramsar List for the Connecticut
River Estuary and Tidal River Wetlands Complex. All the descriptive
and technical information is there, prepared by the Office of Long Island Sound Programs
of the DEP, the Southern New England section of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the
Connecticut chapter of The Nature Conservancy. Quite a few Web sites have been set
up to celebrate and consecrate other Ramsar wetlands around the world, but this appears to
be the first time anyone has posted a full technical report on the site, and it seems to
be a brilliant model for imitation. Find the document at http://dep.state.ct.us/lis/ramsar/Connrivr.htm.
[22/9/98] [This Web Editor was
mountain biking along the Connecticut River just three weeks ago (way farther north than
the estuary) and wishes still to be there.]
Global Biodiversity Forum
13 officially announced. The
13th session of the Global Biodiversity Forum will be held in the days prior
to the Ramsar Convention's Conference of the Parties in San José, May 1999,
and here's a copy of the official announcement
now being distributed by the meeting's organizers. [16/9/98]
Call
for papers.
Journal Vida Silvestre
Neotropical calls for papers.
The journal Neotropical Wildlife, in Costa Rica, is calling for papers on a
wide range of Ramsar-related subjects for its issue due for publication before
the 7th Conference of the Parties;
see the details on this announcement posted to the Ramsar Forum. [18/9/98]
A few minor notes . . . .
Threatened Waterfowl Specialist
Group sets up new list. You
heard it here first . . . or at least, you heard it here eventually. On
26 August, Andy Green of the Donana Biological Station informed
the Ramsar Forum of the creation of a new e-mail mailing list on globally threatened
or near-threatened Anatidae anywhere in the world, with instructions for joining
up. Click here for the message.
If you don't know what Anatidae are, this list may not be for you. But if you
are now personally threatening, or near-threatening, any Anatidae yourself,
please do immediately sign up for this list, before it's too late. [14/9/98]
Two
new Ramsar sites in the Western Hemisphere.
Bolivia
has designated an 800,000 hectare area comprising its share of Lago Titicaca
and its catchment, and the United States
has newly conferred Ramsar status on Bolinas Lagoon, near San Francisco, California.
Read a brief note on both of them, right
here. [11/9/98]
Ramsar
Regional Meeting set for Oceania.
At the invitation
of the Government of New Zealand, the 1st Oceania Regional
Meeting will be held in the Waikato Region of New Zealand from 1 to 4 December
1998. The agenda will include consideration of the key topics scheduled
for discussion at COP7 in May, such as policy
and legislative frameworks for implementing the Convention; how Ramsar can work
more effectively in partnership with the other international conventions; mobilising
development assistance; and models and incentives for involving local people
in wetland conservation and wise use. The draft
programme has been prepared and is presently being sent by diplomatic notification
to all of the Parties and prospective Parties in the region. [9/9/98]
Remarkable
Honor. MedWet
called a "success story".
The MedWet initiative was begun in 1992 with EC assistance and implementation
by the Ramsar Bureau, WWF, Wetlands International, Tour du Valat, and the governments
of five Mediterranean states. A subsequent project to facilitate the extension
of MedWet cooperation to five non-EU Mediterranean states (Albania, Algeria,
Croatia, Morocco, and Tunisia) was awarded funding, through the Ramsar Bureau,
from the EC financial instrument LIFE-Third Countries. This project has
recently been listed on the LIFE Web site as one of the funding instrument's
seven "success stories" (http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/life/3countr/succ.htm).
Congratulations to Thymio Papayannis, the MedWet Coordinator,
and everyone else involved in the project. [7/9/98]
Assistance
sought on guidelines - maybe
you can help. Dr
Faizal Parish is requesting input on two projects he is heading
up in preparation for the 7th Conference of the Parties in May 1999. One
has to do with developing draft Guidelines
for integrating wetlands conservation and wise use into river basin management
for parties to the Ramsar Convention, and the other, with
providing guidance for Ramsar Contracting Parties in developing bilateral and
multilateral donor arrangements. Read his descriptions of the projects
and inputs sought, and see if you might be able to help out. [6/9/98]
The first Evian Encounter
announced. The Evian Encounters,
a series of four high-level seminars funded under the Evian Project, will kick
off on 26-30 October with a round table and briefing tour for officials from
the Neotropical Region. Read
more about it here. [7/9/98]
The
USA names its 16th site.
The United States
has designated its 16th Wetland of International Importance, the Sand
Lake National Wildlife Refuge (8,700 hectares). Quoting the accompanying
news release: "Located near Columbia, South Dakota, the 22,000-acre Sand
Lake National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1935 as a refuge and breeding
ground for migratory birds and other wildlife. Sand Lake will be the only Wetlands
Convention site within the Prairie Pothole Joint Venture Area, a subdivision
of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. A large freshwater cattail
marsh, it provides critical nesting and staging habitat for many different bird
species. The number of migrating waterfowl using the large wetland complex often
exceeds 20,000 and includes such birds as mallards, wood ducks and Canada geese.
Sand Lake is also important habitat for reptiles, amphibians, fish, and mammals,
contributing to global biodiversity. 'Thousands of people from birdwatchers
to anglers and hunters to hikers to school groups visit Sand Lake refuge each
year,' said [US Fish and Wildlife Service Director Jamie Rappaport] Clark. 'Its
popularity for outdoor recreation gives the Service and its partners a great
opportunity to help refuge visitors understand how wetlands impact their lives.'"
The USA's total Ramsar area now comes to 1,172,390 hectares, and globally the
112 Parties' 932 sites cover 69,059,586 hectares. [5/9/98]
Ramsar Web stats. In the vacation month of August 1998, 6,472
people dialed into the Ramsar Web site and had a look at 22,809 Web pages,
averaging a bit over 17 minutes per "user session". Viewers came in from
87 different countries, as nearly as that figure could be analyzed from their ISP
addresses. And they're all welcome!! [5/9/98]
Wetlands International-AEME Director stepping down. Dr Mike Moser, Director of Wetlands
International - Africa, Europe, Middle East (and its previous incarnation as IWRB) over
the past ten years, has announced that he will be stepping aside at the end of 1998 and
returning with his family to the UK, as three years ago he promised them he would when the
move to Wageningen, the Netherlands, was in planning. Mike's accomplishments with Wetlands
International and his leadership in the world of wetland conservation are well known and
don't need rehearsing here, at this time anyway. The Bureau has been asked to post a position opening notice for his successor, and we hasten hasten
to oblige. [3/9/98] [This position has 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.
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.
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