Photos from the 7th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties -- Behind the scenes
"People and Wetlands: The Vital Link"
7th Meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties
Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar, Iran, 1971)
San José, Costa Rica, 10-18 May 1999
The technical and secretariat side of the COP
 | Television coverage of the Plenaries |
| The interpreters' box in the Plenary Hall |  |
 | The team from Earth Negotiations Bulletin (International Institute for Sustainable Development) |
Registration and the Registration Database
An Excedrin Moment: Sandra Hails and Valerie Higgins discovering that everyone has registered as 'Head of Delegation'.
Back to the manual.
The COP Information Desk, very useful for Spanish-speakers
The Documentation and Translation Room
 | Tracking daily revisions in 80 documents, in English, French, and Spanish |
| Maryse Mahy (Nova Scotia, Canada), Documents Assistant for the COP |  |
The French Translation Team
 | French Translators Danièle Devitre, Christiane Milev, and Catherine Lokschin |
Cecile Durussel, seconded from IUCN
The Spanish Translation Team
Spanish translators Marta Prats and Ricardo Pochtar, with two superb secretaries on loan from the Government of Costa Rica
Translator Juan Carlos Valdovinos, with a typist from Costa Rica
Documents Night
Sunday, 16 May 1999, was set aside for field excursions for the delegates, in order to give the Documentation and Translation Team time to revise, print, and distribute the latest versions of all the documents to be put up for approval in the final Plenary Sessions. At 2 a.m., Sunday night/Monday morning, the staff of the secretariat began to become delirious.
-- photos by Dwight Peck, Tim Jones, and Annette Keller
