What's
New @ Ramsar What's
New @ Ramsar
1
April 1999
Headline
story. No News at all.
In a possibly suicidal
frenzy, Ramsar Bureau staff are pounding the keyboards right round the clock
to prepare the magnificently voluminous documentation for the 7th Conference
of the Contracting Parties, San José, Costa Rica, 10-19 May 1999 -- tens of
thousands of pages in all the three languages, all
available on this site [eventually] (get started with your reading: there
will be a QUIZ!), and they can't
possibly be expected to pass on any news about wetland conservation and wise
use until this burgeoning Saga reaches its inevitable conclusion in Central
America a month and a half hence. But do stay tuned, in case someone should
come up for air long enough to relay the true skinny and post something here
that makes sense. [19/3/99]
Old
Headline story. Joint Web
Site inaugurated. In efforts
growing out of WCMC's important "Feasibility study for a harmonised
information management infrastructure for the biodiversity-related conventions",
the new Joint Web Site has been unveiled, a hyperlinked index to analogous sections
of the Web sites of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna, the Convention
on the Conservation of Migratory Species, the Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar),
and the World Heritage Convention. Hosted by the CBD's Clearing-House
Mechanism, the new site offers a convenient roadmap through the five conventions'
sites. Watch for this logo, and get connected. More products of the WCMC
study are under development. To see the Feasibility Study itself,
click here and depart
for the WCMC Web site. [12/3/99] [Update: the Joint Web Site is now at http://www.biodiv.org/convention/partners-websites.asp]
Register
now or else! Picture
yourself standing in the rain in the Herradura parking lot, watching gaily clad
COP7 delegates through the windows dancing through the lobby of the Convention
Centre, wishing you'd registered on time. Preparations
are well under way for the 7th Ramsar COP in May in San José. The
10 March deadline for countries to submit draft decisions for
consideration at the meeting has now passed, and a total of 30 proposed resolutions
and recommendations will be on the table in 60 days’ time. Most
of these are already available on the Ramsar Web site in English, French,
Spanish, and the others received this week will appear over the next week or
so. All documents will be distributed by post on paper and diskette in early
April. As of today 107 of the 114 Contracting Parties have submitted their National
Reports and the overviews of the Reports for each region are now being finalized.
If you intend to be there for the big event and haven't yet registered, please
do AS SOON AS POSSIBLE to avoid the rush -
- with the Bureau for the COP itself
- with MKI Travel for hotel bookings, and
- with IUCN for the Global Biodiversity Forum which will precede the Ramsar meeting, 7-9 May
Headline
story: COP7
delegates need to book hotels!
Any delegates (other than sponsored delegates) who have not yet made their hotel
reservations in San José should do so very soon, because the hotels are filling
up quickly, and any remaining room blocks at the special conference rates will
evidently be cancelled at the beginning of April. Hotel information is available
on this site and from MKI Travel: http://www.mkitravel.com/conference/ramsarcop799/index.html
[11/3/99]
New
on the Site: You've
been following the Ramsar COP7 National Reports (NRs) as they have been appearing
here! -- Now Get Serious: here are the
Regional Overviews, drawn from the NRs in a hearty and robust attempt
to make sense of them all. English only, so far, but nil desperandum,
the whole lot will pop up on your Ramsar doorstep in the next few days. [23/3/99]
USA expands a very good site. The United States has extended the Caddo Lake (state of
Texas) Ramsar site by 5,347 hectares in seven parcels of property owned by the United
States Army, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the Texas General Land Office, Mr.
Don Henley the well-known musician and member of the Eagles rock group, and the J.
Marshall Jones family (J. Marshall Jones, Frances Elizabeth Jones, David Stuart Jones, and
Jennifer Jones Kruse). The Caddo Lake Institute is to be commended heartily for its work
in securing this site extension. [3/3/99]
Headline
story: Bureau visit to
China. The Secretary General, Mr
Delmar Blasco, and the Regional Coordinator for Asia, Ms Rebecca D’Cruz, met in
Beijing on 26-27 February 1999 with the Head of the Convention's Administrative Authority
in China, Mr. Wang Zhibao, Administrator of the National Forestry Administration, and
stopped in for a gabfest with the Wetlands International - China Programme. Here's a brief report, with photos. [4/3/99]
Warning
signs for the Pantanal.
The World Conference on Preservation and Sustainable Development in
the Pantanal: the Pantanal in the 21st century. A conference in Washington,
D.C., 26-28 February 1999, sponsored by the World University Federation, the
University of Bridgeport (USA), the Sun Moon University, and the Washington
Times Foundation, with speakers from the Ramsar Bureau, the Worldwatch Institute,
Conservation International, UNEP, OAS, the World Bank, several universities,
and the government of Brazil. The Deputy Secretary General delivered the keynote
address and provides this brief report
on the meeting. [2/3/99]
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 Refuge, 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]
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]
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.
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]
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.
visitors
to this site since........ Wait . . . . . . . ? . . . . . . ?? Oooh, I
must have dropped it.