What's
New @ Ramsar What's
New @ Ramsar
1
November 1999
Headline
story. Ramsar
and UNFCCC COP5. Deputy
Secretary General Bill Phillips was in Bonn last week for the
opening days of the Climate Change Convention's 5th Conference of the Parties,
and whilst there he addressed the UNFCCC's Subsidiary Body for Scientific and
Technical Advice on the importance of wetlands in the climate change equation.
Here is the text of his speech.
This week, the Secretary General, Delmar Blasco, will be addressing
the COP's ministerial session with a similar message from a different point
of view -- watch for it. [1/11/99]
Who's Where?
Delmar Blasco, Secretary General, is attending the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change COP5 in Bonn, Germany, and will be addressing the ministerial session on Tuesday, 2 November. His address will appear here within hours afterward. [1/11/99]
New
on the Site: IUCN
policy paper on wetlands and climate change; the text of
Uganda's National Wetland Policy, 1995, the first or one of the
first NWPs in the world; it joins Australia's and Canada's NWPs in the Wise
Use Resource Centre as models for other Contracting Parties. [21/10/99]
.Announcements.
International Crane Foundation and Wetlands International post a vacancy.
International Crane Foundation
and Wetlands International seek a Black Crowned Crane Programme Coordinator,
to be based in Dakar. Here is the announcement in English and French. [link
later removed][28/10/99]
Biodiversity "Joint Web Site" in French. The CBD secretariat has newly posted a French version of the Joint Web Site of the biodiversity-related conventions (CBD, CITES, CMS, Ramsar, and World Heritage), joining the English and Spanish versions that were established earlier this year. Visit http://biodiv.org/rioconv/websites-f.html . [link later removed][22/10/99]
Goose2000. The 5th annual meeting of Wetlands International's Goose Specialist Group is slated for De Haan, Belgium, 8-11 January 2000, hosted by the Institute of Nature Conservation (Ministry of the Flemish Community, Belgium): here's the Goose2000 Web address. [22/10/99]
Wetlands and climate change. On the eve of the 5th COP of the UN
Framework Convention on Climate Change, set for 25 October to 5 November
in Bonn, Germany, the Bureau is making available an important new policy paper on "Wetlands
and Climate Change: exploring collaboration between the Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar,
Iran, 1971) and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change", newly
written by Ger Bergkamp and Brett Orlando of IUCN-The World Conservation
Union. This paper has been sent to all the Administrative Authorities in the Ramsar
Contracting Parties, with the request that they encourage their counterpart national
delegates to the UNFCCC COP to seek ways to build cooperation on wetland issues with the
Ramsar Convention into the emerging UNFCCC agenda, as the CBD, CCD, CMS, and World
Heritage have recently done. The IUCN paper proposes concrete suggestions for
cooperation, but it's perhaps even more valuable as a background scientific briefing paper
on the effects of climate change on wetlands and their valuable resources to humans round
the world. Here is the English original of
IUCN's paper, and a translation into
Spanish; the French version will appear here within days; Arabic, Chinese,
and Russian versions will be available to the participants in UNFCCC's COP5 in hard copy
format. The Ramsar Deputy Secretary General, Bill Phillips, and the Secretary
General, Delmar Blasco, will be handing off the baton during the two-week COP5 and closely
watching for opportunities to inject our vital wetland issues into the emerging Climate
Change political agenda. [21/10/99]
Second Evian Encounter gets
under way. The second of the Ramsar
"Evian Encounters" seminar series began yesterday in Evian, France, and runs
throughout the week. With funding from the "Evian
Initiative" sponsored by the Danone Group for Ramsar outreach efforts,
the Evian Encounters bring high-level decision-makers together for presentation of a
number of Ramsar-related and wise use issues. Following the successful first
gathering this time last year, for representatives from the Neotropical region, this
meeting is aimed at Francophone Africa and will combine two days of discussions followed
by a field excursion to the Camargue and the Station Biologique de la Tour du Valat in
southern France. Speakers include Messrs Blasco, Tiéga, and Salathé from the
Bureau; Christophe Lefébvre of the Conservatoire de l'Espace Littoral; Mme Marie Odile
Guth, Directrice de la Protection de la Nature et des Paysages, France; Lambert Tam of the
Commission du Bassin du Lac Tchad; Dr Awaiss Aboubacar, STRP member from Niger; Mme Alison
Duncan of LPO, Eurosite, and BirdLife International - France; and Remy Gouin, of the Fonds
Français pour l'Environnement Mondial. [26/10/99]
Management
Plan for Dongzhaigang Ramsar Site, China.
With funds provided through the Ramsar Small Grants Fund, the Wetlands International
- China Programme, in partnership with the Hainan Forestry Bureau and the State
Forestry Administration, has developed a five-year management plan for the Dongzhaigang
National Nature Reserve in southern China. This mangrove site is one of seven
Ramsar sites in China and the sixth to have a management plan in place. The
plan was developed through consultation with local stakeholders and comprises
five Operational Objectives. Under these, 28 management activities have been
identified each with its own budget, time frame and responsible authority. Through
the project, staff of the Hainan Forestry Bureau were trained in management
planning and community outreach. For further information please contact Mr Chen
Kelin, Director, Wetlands International - China Programme ( chenkl@sun.ihep.ac.cn
). Here's
a reprint of the plan. [23/10/99]
World
Wetlands Day is coming round again.
World Wetlands Day, the 2nd of February of every year, has been celebrated all
round the world since 1997 in more and more countries, at more and more levels
of government and community. Last year's WWD theme, "People and Wetlands",
proved to be especially helpful in communicating the key Ramsar wise use message
to the wetlandophile public, and the theme for WWD 2000, "Celebrating
our Wetlands of International Importance", will hopefully
provide an opportunity to make Ramsar's "Vision for the List" -- a
global network of interrelated internationally important wetlands -- more widely
understood by our fellow citizens. The Ramsar Bureau will soon announce
generous offers of WWD posters, colorful stickers for your lunchboxes, inspirational
pep talks by the Secretary General, and once again we will offer to post a summary
of your WWD activities along with others from the rest of the world on our Web
site. In the meantime, content yourselves with reading over New
Zealand's planning for WWD 2000, the "public awareness
strategy" from one of our favorite Contracting Parties down-under. [20/10/99]
Increased
cooperation between Ramsar and BirdLife urged.
In his statement to the World Conference of Birdlife International in Malaysia,
which concluded in Malaysia on Saturday, Dr Bill Phillips,
Ramsar’s Deputy Secretary General urged even further strengthening of the
already strong partnership between the Convention and BirdLife. In his statement,
the DSG highlighted the opportunity to use BirdLife's Important Bird Area (IBA)
programme to identify priority sites for Ramsar listing. This programme has
already identified over 5000 IBAs (with many more to come once global coverage
is achieved) using criteria based on the Ramsar "biodiversity" site
criteria. The IBAs therefore provide a readymade "shadow list" for
Contracting Parties to consider in implementing the Strategic Framework for
the List adopted at COP7. The DSG also urged BirdLife to promote the Ramsar
"toolkit" about to be published, the Handbooks for the Wise Use of
Wetlands which embody the products of COP7, and to help secure more Parties
to the Convention. Here is
the text of the address. [19/10/99]
STRP
elects a new Chairperson.
At the recent 8th meeting of the Scientific and Technical Review Panel, the
members unanimously elected Dr Jorge Jiménez of Costa Rica
to serve as Chairperson for the next triennium, replacing Dr Yaa Ntiamoa-Baidu
of Ghana. Here's the whole story
with pix. [5/10/99]
Guatemala
significantly extends the El Tigre Ramsar site. Ing. José Juventino Galvez Ruano, Secretario Ejecutivo of the Consejo Nacional
de Areas Protegidas in the office of the President of the Republic of Guatemala has
informed the Bureau that the Ramsar site Biotopo Laguna del Tigre,
designated on 26 June 1990 with an area 48,372 hectares, has been extended to include the
Parque Nacional Laguna del Tigre (289,912 ha) to a total area of 335,080 hectares.
[4/10/99]
New
Book on "Wet Grasslands".
Very timely!!!, in light of the STRP's recent bewilderment
about how to interpret the term "wet grasslands" in the context of
the Ramsar Classification System for Wetland Type ---- here is a new book from
RSPB called European Wet Grassland: guidelines for management and
restoration. Here
are the details from the Ramsar Forum. [6/10/99]
Latest
International Waterfowl Census results.
Latest IWC results from the Western Palearctic and Southwest Asia have just
been published, including twenty-year population trends. The International Waterbird
Census (IWC) has taken place in January in the Western Palearctic and Southwest
Asia in every year since 1967. The latest IWC results from the region have just
been published, presenting detailed summaries of counts made by over 11,000
observers in 47 countries in January 1995 and January 1996. Midwinter numbers
and distribution are summarised for 174 species of waterbird of which 23 million
were counted in the region in 1995 and 19 million in 1996. In addition, detailed
estimates of population trends between 1974 and 1996 of 24 species of Anatidae
and Common Coot in five areas of the Western Palearctic are presented. Here's
some more detail and information on how to order. [6/10/99]
Another
fine Ramsar-related Web site.
If you've never done anything worth the time before, do it now -- check out
the Republic of South Africa's Ramsar-related Web site, with
its policies, links, and most of all its map to profiles of all the RSA's Ramsar
sites, including their RISs!!! Do it now, and then write to John
Dini and say thank you. This, with Australia's national Ramsar
Web site, will be a model for national Ramsar Web sites for many years into
our threatened future. [8/10/99] [link
later removed]
Good Ramsar-related Web site. Visit the interesting Web site of the Bonaire Marine Park,
home of two Ramsar sites in the Netherlands Antilles: Lac Bay and Klein Bonaire.
It's at http://www.bmp.org/ . [7/10/99]
Ramsar book now
available in Chinese. The Chinese
version of Ramsar’s Economic Valuation of Wetlands has been
printed and is ready for wide distribution. Translated by Li Lukang, the
publication has two parts – first, a translation of the Ramsar book, Economic
Valuation of Wetlands: a guide for Policy Makers and Planners, by Barbier, Acreman,
and Knowler; and second, a research report entitled "An Indicator System of
Evaluation of Wetland Benefits and Values in China" written by Chinese experts. Mr. Chen
Kelin, the Director of Wetlands International - China Programme, wrote a preface
for the book, emphasizing that while the concept of wetland functions has been known by
people to some extent, very few people know about the value of wetlands. The book will
help wetland senior managers and planners in their policy-making. Mr. Chen expressed his
appreciation on behalf of the China Programme to the Embassy of Royal Netherlands to China
and to Wetlands International - Asia Pacific for their financial assistance. (Reported by
Li Lukang) [4/10/99]
Progress
on the Ramsar "Graphical Profile".
Simon Nash, Acting Director of Wetlands
International - AEME, which maintains the Ramsar Database under
contract with the Convention, writes: "The first of many phases of putting
the Ramsar Database on the World Wide Web is complete. Starting with Africa,
the 'Graphical Profile' of the Database has now linked 'clickable' Contracting
Party maps which display the general distribution of Ramsar Sites with site
descriptions of those sites from the 1999 Directory of Wetlands
of International Importance. Work is now progressing on
other regions. Check this out at: http://www.wetlands.org/RSDB/default.htm
by double-clicking on the Graphical Profile link. [3/10/99]
Ramsar
signs MOU with Eurosite. Eurosite,
the network of organizations that manage Europe's natural heritage, has signed
a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ramsar Convention secretariat.
At a ceremony in Steenwijk, the Netherlands, 24 September 1999, Delmar Blasco,
Secretary General of the Convention on Wetlands, delivered a sparkling address
and performed the ritual signatures -- here are the text
of the MOU and the
SG's address. [30/9/99]
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.
