Update on the Work of the Ramsar Interns

Since joining the Bureau on 1 May 1997, the present two Ramsar Interns have been occupying their hours productively and more or less as follows:

Jocelyn Bowden of Australia has been chiefly involved in affairs concerning the Asian region, assisting the Regional Coordinator for Asia, Rebecca D'Cruz. She has assisted in follow-up on the vast number of Small Grants Fund proposals received from the region, has prepared correspondence to Asian Contracting Parties on a number of issues, and has been employing her experience with data management to develop a new Access database for helping to keep track of issues correspondence with each of the CPs. In addition to that, she is preparing a proposal for the Bureau for the development of a comprehensive, global set of country profiles recording the Ramsar history and status of each of the 101 Contracting Parties.

Maryse Mahy of Canada has been primarily occupied with European affairs and has helped Tim Jones, the Regional Coordinator for Europe, with technical evaluation of European Small Grants Fund proposals, follow-up on proposals with missing information, and securing external technical review of proposals requiring that exercise. She has also been assisting in preparations for the 1998 Pan-European Regional Meeting to be held in Latvia. In addition, she has been going through country files in preparation for a long-term project to review the development and implementation of wetland policies in Europe. Beyond that, she has been employing her language skills to make translations into French of the West African Sub-Regional Meeting Report and a number of questionnaire reponses received from francophone African countries.