What's
New @ Ramsar What's
New @ Ramsar
5
February 1999
Headline
story: Shorebird
Conservation in the Asia-Pacific Region. Mark
Barter, Chair of the Asia-Pacific Shorebird Working Group, reports
to the Ramsar Forum on the progress of the Shorebird Action Plan. [2/2/99]
Ex-Headline
story: Bureau
celebrates WWD '99. Without
mentioning rivers of champagne coursing through the absent Secretary General's
office, and party hats and Ramsar scarves waving madly out the windows, the
Ramsar Bureau is marking the third World Wetlands Day with
. . . a bunch of press releases! All
new material, commissioned articles and interviews, and photographs, of the
Wetland Conservation Award winners for 1999. An
innovative public-private partnership in the designation of a new Ramsar site
in Australia. A background paper on this year's "People and Wetlands"
theme, by Sandra Hails. And the traditional wetlandtide message from the
Secretary General, suitable for quoting, even framing. See
it here. [2/2/99]
Ex-Headline
story: Gwydir
wetlands in NSW, a public-private partnership. Working
in partnership, four farming families, two conservation groups, the New South
Wales State Government, and the Commonwealth Government of Australia have developed
an historic Memorandum of Understanding that will maintain conservation management
of the unique Gwydir wetlands, 500 kilometres northwest of Sydney in Australia’s
semi-arid regions. The Ramsar
designation will be announced on World Wetlands Day. [2/2/99]
New
on the Site: More
National Reports, when will this ever end? Bulgaria,
Georgia, and Sri
Lanka this evening. [4/2/99]
Footnote: Bureau
diversity. Talk about
diversity in the work place. The Bureau staff presently sports the following
nationalities: Argentina (1), Australia (1), Belgium (1/2), Canada (1/2), Honduras (1),
Hungary (1), Iran (1), Korea, Rep. of (1), Malaysia (1), Niger (1), Scotland (1), Spain
(1), Switzerland (2), United Kingdom (3), USA (1), Zambia (1). The UK has a
plurality, but not a majority by a long margin. [2/2/99]
United
Kingdom adds eight new Ramsar sites. The United Kingdom has completed paperwork on 8 new Ramsar sites that were
designated between June 1997 and March ’98, and these have now been added to the
Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance, bringing the UK’s total number
of sites to 127, covering 530,305 hectares. In England, there are Somerset Levels and
Moors (6,388 ha) and Duddon Estuary (6,806 ha); in Scotland, Ronas Hill - North Roe &
Tingon (5,470 ha), East Sanday Coast (1,515 ha), South Uist Machair & Lochs in the
Hebrides islands (3,352 ha), and Ythan Estuary & Meikle Loch (314 ha); and in Northern
Ireland, Strangford Loch (15,581 ha) and Carlingford Loch (827 ha).
In addition, two existing Ramsar sites have been extended: Broadland, to 4623 ha, and River Crouch Marshes, now to be called "Crouch & Roach Estuaries (Mid-Essex Coast Phase 3)", to 1,735 ha. The Convention now has 965 Ramsar sites worldwide, covering 70,471,806 hectares. [30/1/99]
Integrated
Coastal Management conference planned.
A conference entitled "Integrated Coastal Management in the Mediterranean
Region: Strategies, Solutions, and Technologies" is being organized
by the Battelle organization with sponsorship by MedCoast and the Urban Harbors
Institute. Set for Alghero, Sardinia, 4-7 May 1999, the forum will feature
discussions and sharing of experiences, panel presentations, problem-solving
sessions, and demonstrations of technologies and approaches applied to sustainable
coastal development. An attractive Web site has been set up to provide
further information: http://www.battelle.org/environment/technology/ICMconference
[30/1/99]
"Wetlands
of Argentina" published.
Wetlands International - Americas has published Los Humedales de
la Argentina: clasificación, situación actual, conservación y legislación,
which covers biological and functional issues of wetlands, as well as social
and economic factors. More information can be had from Daniel Blanco,
head of the South America Programme of Humedales Internacional - Américas (dblanco@wamani.apc.org).
[30/1/99]
"Vulnerability
Assessment of Major Wetlands in the Asia-Pacific Region".
That's the name of the project of the Asia Pacific Network (APN) for Global
Climate Change, coordinated by the Environmental Research Institute of the Supervising
Scientist (ERISS), that held a workshop on the vulnerability assessment of the
Yellow River Delta in Beijing, China, on 22 January 1999. Wetlands International-China
Programme has kindly provided a very brief report on the meeting, with contacts
for further info, right here.
[29/1/99]
Danone-Evian/FFEM
workshop on "Closed Sea Deltas". Tim
Jones, Ramsar Regional Coordinator for Europe, recently attended the
first workshop of the network of 'Closed Sea Deltas' established under the Danone-Evian/FFEM
programme, 20-23 January 1999, in Campagna Lupia, Italy. Delta managers
from the Rhône, Axios, Po, Danube, Volga, Ebro, and Dnepr attended, and here
is a very brief report. [26/1/99].
Inventory
of potential Ramsar sites in France.
At the request of Ramsar’s Administrative Authority in France, and under the
supervision of the French Ramsar Committee, the National Natural History Museum has
recently completed an updating of the list of wetlands in France (including its Overseas
Départements and Territories) which meet the Ramsar Criteria for Identifying Wetlands of
International Importance. The final report, published in December, lists 119 wetlands in
Metropolitan France and a further 39 sites overseas. It includes an annotated list,
ordered by administrative region, and simple maps are provided to show the location of
each site. It is expected that this work will lead to new site designations in due course.
France currently has 18 Ramsar sites, of which 3 are in overseas Départements. Copies of
the report are available from M Charles THIÉBAUT at the Administrative Authority, the
Direction de la Nature et des Paysages, Ministère de l'Aménagement du Territoire et de
l'Environnement (Fax: +33-1-42.19.19.78). [26/1/99]
Photos
from October 1998's 21st Standing Committee meeting. Here
we are, three months later, and a bunch of photos of the 21st SC meeting have
been reposing idly on a certain someone's desk all this busy while -- STARING
up with a gently understanding but nonetheless incriminating
gaze -- but now we have them, neatly low-rez Mustek jpeg'd for all the participants
and their many friends and admirers. Not great photos, but oh
well, in any case, here they are. See how many of these blurry faces you
can identify, and win the Ramsar blurry face award (to be presented in San José,
May 1999). [25/1/99]
Pan-Asia
Regional Meeting.
The orphan of Ramsar regional meetings for this triennium, the Pan-Asian meeting
is now looming in upon us -- set for Manila, 22-24 February (unless it's a leap
year), the meeting will cover a number of key themes in the run-up to COP7.
Here is some essential info
for the participants -- where to get your taxi, what clothes to
bring, etc. -- a little less indispensable for the general Web reader.
[22/1/99]
Helper
needed for shorebird count. Matt
Wheeler, Coordinator of the Wetlands International - Cambodia and Mekong
Programme based in Phnom Penh, is looking for an experienced counter of shorebirds who
might have 30 days to spare in March of this year. Wetlands International, in
collaboration with Birdlife International, are soon to commence a one-month study of
shorebirds in southern Vietnam to nominate sites for the Shorebird Reserve Network; the
work is being managed by Wetlands International from the Canberra office, specifically by
Doug Watkins.
Help is needed from someone who is already living or traveling in the region and would like the experience of being part of the project. They have not got much funding for salaries but do have enough to cover all expenses: food, accommodation, and transport. If you should know of anyone who might be interested in helping out, please ask him or her to contact Matt directly (phone/fax: (855) 23 427 137, Mobile: (855) 15 830 410, e-mail wetlands@bigpond.com.kh).
Staffing
for the Neotropical Region. Dr
Monserrat Carbonell, Regional Coordinator for the Neotropics, has left the Bureau,
and applications are being accepted for her position until the end of January.
For the meantime, Ms Nancy Vallejo
has joined the secretariat as Senior Advisor for the Americas for the period
through to the COP in May. Get a little more detail on that arrangement,
right here in English, right
here in Español. [20/1/99]
Nice
new Web site: Republic of
Korea. An interesting Web site on the wetlands of the
Republic of Korea has newly been established by the Korean Wetlands Alliance,
an umbrella group of NGOs set up following Ramsar's COP6 to advance the cause
of wetlands and the Convention in the country. Visit it at http://ecoserve.kfem.or.kr/wetland/
[22/1/99]
Positions
available: WWF seeks a "Scorecards Officer".
Martin Winther, WWF Freshwater Information
Officer, writes that the WWF European Freshwater Team are looking for a Scorecards
Officer (to be based in Denmark) who will produce a Scorecard, the intention
of which is to highlight the status of government activities with respect to
freshwater and wetlands and to demonstrate the strong and weak points of freshwater
policy and management on a country by country basis. Here is a more detailed
job description and, into the bargain, a profile of the proposed WWF Freshwater
Scorecards Project. [15/1/99]
New
intern joins the Bureau. Bureau
staff has been strengthened for January and February 1999 by the arrival of Hye-Jung
Yang, a new intern from the Republic of Korea. A student in the
Graduate School of International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in
Seoul (which is picking up the tab for her sojourn amongst us), Hye-Jung has bachelor
degrees in English and Swahili and is presently pursuing an advanced course of study in
African affairs. She also has experience as an intern in the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and Trade, Seoul, in the Middle East and Africa Division. Though lamentably she
will be with us only for a few months, she is already hard at work at helping to sort out
some of our more enigmatic National Reports from the region. You'll see Hye-Jung's
picture here if we should happen to have a staff party anytime soon. [14/1/99]
World
Wetlands Day not far off. In October
1996, the Ramsar Standing Committee officially designated World Wetlands Day for 2
February of every year, the anniversary of the signing of the Ramsar Convention on
Wetlands in 1971, as an opportunity for governments, organizations, and citizens to
undertake big and small actions intended to raise public awareness of wetland values and
benefits in general and the Ramsar Convention in particular. In February 1997, only a few
months later, a considerable number of countries undertook a wide range of activities
aimed at using WWD to raise public awareness, and the worldwide response in 1998 was
enormous -- just the WWD activities reported to the Bureau cover more than 50 countries.
The great hope, of course, is that the response will be even better in 1999. The suggested theme for activities is "People and Wetlands: the Vital Link", the same as the theme of the 7th COP set for May in Costa Rica, but of course that is a suggestion only. The Bureau, groaning under the burden of the preparations for COP7, will try to contribute in a modest way by providing a press release/statement from the Secretary General which may, as in the past two years, provide a useful source for quotations, and we will again make available both the same WWD poster from last year and a little brochure of suggested activities (request from Montserrat Riera, riera@ramsar.org). We also plan to use WWD to make available more background and biographical material on the five winners of the Wetland Conservation Award, who will be honored at the COP.
Once again, we would like to urge all groups and individuals who are planning activities of any kind for World Wetlands Day to let the Bureau know about them, either as plans beforehand or reports afterwards or preferably both, and we will post them on a special section of the Ramsar Web site (http://ramsar.org/wwd_index.htm). You can see our reporting on WWD 1998 at http://ramsar.org/wwd98_report.htm and /wwd98_plans.htm. [12/1/99]
Positions
Available: Wetlands International: Operations and Finance Manager.
[7/1/99] [This position has been filled.]
Ramsar's
new logo enters into force. The
Ramsar Standing Committee, in Decision 21.4 of its October 1998 meeting, adopted
a new logo which better expresses the evolving mission of the Convention.
Today, 1 January 1999, the new logo comes into force and will be used from now
on as Ramsar's corporate graphical identity on letterhead paper, publications,
Web site, business cards, etc. Here's
some explanatory text on the new logo, prepared for our first announcement
of the change posted here on 27 November. [1/1/99]
Yueyang
Declaration reprinted here. The
Sixth Northeast Asia and North Pacific Environmental Forum was held in Yueyang
City, Hunan Province, China from 17-20 December 1998. It was attended by 92
representatives from governmental and non-governmental organisations, and environmental
experts from China, Japan, Mongolia, Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation,
the United States, and also from international organisations. The meeting was
organised by Wetlands International – China Programme, the China Environmental
Protection Foundation and the Asia Foundation, with the endorsement of the Chinese
government. Funding was provided by the Keidanren Nature Conservation Fund and
Asia Foundation-Japan Office. The resulting resolution, called the
Yueyang Declaration, has been provided for reprinting here by Faizal
Parish and by Chen Kelin, Coordinator, Wetlands International-China Programme
(Secretariat of Yueyang Workshop). [26/12/98]
"Kintyre
Goose Roosts". The UK has
designated "Kintyre Goose Roosts", a 311-hectare site in Scotland, as its 119th
Wetland of International Importance, effective 28 October. Tim Jones
reports: The Ramsar site comprises five hill lochs (freshwater lakes) on the Kintyre
peninsula in southwest Scotland: Loch Garasdale, Loch an Fhraoich, Loch Lussa, Black Loch
and Tangy Loch. The lochs are of international importance as a winter roost site for the
globally vulnerable Greenland white-fronted goose (Anser albifrons flavirostris).
During the five-winter period 1991/92 - 1995/96 the site held an average of 8% of the
world population, thereby qualifying under Ramsar criterion 3c. Additional biodiversity
values of national importance include the presence of European otters (Lutra lutra)
and, at Tangy Loch, a nationally rare aquatic plant, the slender naiad (Najas flexilis).
The most prevalent human activities within the site are forestry and sport hunting, with sport fishing, fishery production and livestock grazing as secondary uses. The area also has significant aesthetic, landscape and general non-consumptive recreation value.There are no known significant threats to the site at present, although further monitoring may be required to determine the effects of disturbance from forestry and hunting. [23/12/98]
Global
Biodiversity Forum -- call for co-organizers. The
organizers of GBF13, set for San José, Costa Rica, 7-9 May 1999 (immediately
preceding Ramsar COP7), have announced a list of workshops to be held and asked
for feedback from potential participants. Read
the announcement here [version
español], and contact the organizers directly. [22/12/98]
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.
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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