What's
New @ Ramsar What's
New @ Ramsar
1
March 1999
Headline
story: Progress
on Okefenokee mining dispute.
The Ramsar Administrative Authority in the United States, the Office of International
Affairs of the US Fish and Wildlife Service (kimberly_mcclurg@fws.org), Department
of the Interior, passed on to the Bureau this
press release which reports progress in sorting out the proposed
titanium-mining dispute near the Okefenokee National Wildlife Record, a Ramsar
site in the southern state of Georgia. The press release was issued by
Resolve: Center for Environmental and Public Policy Dispute
Resolution, Washington, D.C. (http://www.resolv.org/).
[1/3/99]
Headline
story: Internet
facilities for administrative authorities.
Following a Bureau survey of the Internet capacities of the Convention's "administrative
authorities" (the government agencies charged with implementation of the
Convention in the Contracting Parties), an approach was made to the Danone Group
(France) to include a budget line in the Evian Project for assisting those Parties
which could benefit from funding for hardware and software to get on-line.
The Bureau has recently been informed that the Direction de la Faune et de la
Chasse in Togo has now got on-line (dirfaune@rdd.tg) and that the Ministry of
Environment and Forest in Bangladesh expects to be up and running by the end
of this month. [24/2/99]
New
on the Site: More
National Reports: Guatemala,
Panama, and Paraguay
most recently. Some 89 NRs are presently available on
this Web site; 4 more have been received and are presently being processed;
6 more were received only in hard copy; and only 15 have not yet been received,
though that number includes Contracting Parties that have joined the Convention
only in recent months. [26/2/99]
Who's Where . . .
Delmar Blasco, the Secretary General, Rebecca D'Cruz, Regional Coordinator for Asia, and her assistant, Parastu Mirabzadeh are in Manila for the Pan-Asian Ramsar Regional Meeting, which will continue through much of next week. The meeting's programme is available here. Then both of them on to Beijing, China, at the end of the week. [26/2/99]
Final
announcements for GBF13.
The 13th Session of the Global Biodiversity Forum will be held 7-9 May, immediately
prior to the Ramsar 7th COP in San José. An impressive array of six workshops
are proposed, and in the final
announcement and call for papers, posted here at the request of
the GBF organizers, these workshops are described and all of the necessary registration
and travel forms are supplied. Contact Nadene Canning Wacker
of IUCN for more information. [22/2/99]
Secretary
General's visit to Costa Rica.
Preparations are well-advanced in Costa Rica for the Convention's 7th meeting
of the Conference of the Contracting Parties, set for May 1999. In the
week of 8 February 1999, Mr Delmar Blasco, the Secretary General, visited San
José to take counsel on the progress so far, and returned to the Bureau with
a glowing report. See a few photos of
Mr Blasco at the open-air press conference held by Ms Elizabeth
Odio Benito, Vice President and Minister of the Environment and Energy,
to brief the Costa Rican media on the coming events. [17/2/99]
Announcement:
Call for internship applications.
Applications are
invited for two of the year-long internship positions in the Ramsar Bureau,
those for Europe and the Neotropics. Please consult the terms
of reference. [link
later removed]
UK
names 4 new Ramsar sites for World Wetlands Day.
Environment Minister Alan Meale took the occasion of World
Wetlands Day, 2 February, to announce the designation of four new Ramsar sites
(press release here), at least
one of which, as Tim Jones
demonstrates, is a very special one. Mr Meale also announced the UK's
ratification of the Africa-Eurasian Migratory Waterfowl Agreement (AEWA), which
was warmly welcomed by the Joint Nature
Conservation Committee (JNCC). It's all here. [16/2/99]
Vietnam
and Madagascar wetlands Web site.
Dr Roger Safford, Royal Holloway Institute for Environmental
Research, University of London (r.safford@rhbnc.ac.uk),
has recently put details of the Darwin Melaleuca Wetlands Project, which finished
in 1998, and the Darwin Madagascar Wetlands project (English and French), which
is continuing, onto the Web site of the Royal Holloway Institute for Environmental
Research: http://www.rhbnc.ac.uk/rhier/darwin.htm
[[link
later removed]]. The Madgascar Wetlands project in
particular is of great interest to the Ramsar community, as the Web page makes
clear. [16/2/99]
Note
on World Wetlands Day.
We've made a start on posting news of World Wetlands Day activities around
the world -- check it out
-- but we need more reports! Don't put this off till August, when we'll
all be too busy preparing for WWD 2000 to spend time posting news of '99.
If you're driving in your car, pull over to the side of the highway now,
get out your pen and find an old envelope in your jacket pocket, and jot down
the notes for a brief survey of what really happened, or almost happened, or
should have happened but was prevented, and then, having restarted your car,
rush (within the limits of safe and courteous driving) to the office and send
it to 
.
And we'll add it to the list, with thanks. See, that was easy. [13/2/99]
Wetlands
International AEME gets a new Executive Director. Dr
Phillip Edwards has been tagged as the new Executive Director
of Wetlands International - Africa, Europe, Middle East, replacing Dr Mike
Moser, who is leaving Wetlands International after almost 11
years service to take up a new career direction based in the United Kingdom.
Please spare an idle moment and read
the official announcement right here. [9/2/99]
El
Salvador joins the Ramsar Convention. UNESCO
has notified the Bureau that on 22 January 1999, El Salvador deposited its instrument
of ratification and became the 114th
Contracting Party to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. The
Convention will come into force for El Salvador on 22 May 1999. The Ramsar Information
Sheet on El Salvador’s first Wetland of International Importance has not
yet been received in the Bureau, but UNESCO notifies that the new Ramsar site
will be "Refugio de Vida Silvestre conocido como área natural de la Laguna
del Jocotal". Though the designated Ramsar site may differ from the published
profile, according to Derek Scott and Montserrat Carbonell, Directory
of Neotropical Wetlands (IUCN/IWRB, 1986), Laguna del Jocotal
is a permanent freshwater lake, up to 3m deep, to the north of the Río Grande
de San Miguel, at the base of the San Miguel Volcano. The lake is eutrophic
and most of the surface is covered with floating vegetation. There is a wildlife
sanctuary within the site, created in 1978; in 1986, about 300 families lived
around the lake, and most of the land in the area is privately owned. [6/2/99]
[français,
español]
UK
whomps its ruddy ducks. The
UK has announced a major trial of control measures aimed at reducing numbers
of the North American ruddy duck (Oxyura jamaicensis), an invasive
exotic species, whose spread from Britain into continental Europe poses a severe
threat to the closely related white-headed duck (Oxyura leucocephala),
a native of Mediterranean wetlands. We're not choosing sides here, just
reporting. [6/2/99]
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]
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]
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]
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]
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
[link
later removed]. [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].
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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