The Ramsar Bulletin Board, 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.
