The Ramsar Bulletin Board, 9 September 1999

Next Big Meeting. BirdLife International World Conference. The BirdLife International World Conference, hosted by BirdLife's partner in Malaysia, the Malaysian Nature Society, will be held 13-17 October at the Awana Hotel, in the Awana Genting Highlands one hour's drive from Kuala Lumpur.  Lots of excursions are promised.   Watch for summaries of the meeting's results here.   [3/9/99]

Headline Story. Ramsar at the COPs. With a new season of Conferences of the Parties almost upon us, Ramsar staff have been busily penciling in the calendar.  As a warm-up, Deputy Secretary General Bill Phillips will attend the BirdLife International World Conference in Malaysia, 13-17 October 1999. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change will hold its 5th COP in Bonn, 25 October to 5 November, and the present plan is for Dr Phillips to attend the first week of that one, with Secretary General Delmar Blasco taking over for the second week. Regional Coordinator Anada Tiéga will participate in the Convention on Migratory Species' COP in Cape Town, South Africa, 10 to 16 November 1999, and Mr Blasco will attend the Convention to Combat Desertification's COP in Brazil, 15-26 November, then rush back to the Bureau for the 24th meeting of the Ramsar Standing Committee. [22/8/99]

.Announcements.Symposium on Neotropical wetlands set for Millenium Event. Posted on the Ramsar Forum: A symposium proposal for the SWS & INTECOL VI Conferences, Millenium Wetland Event, August 6-12, 2000, Quebec, Canada.  Read the description and call for papers right here. [18/8/99]

New on the site. Progress report on the implementation of Ramsar's Joint Work Plan with the Convention on Biological Diversity (E, F, S). [26/8/99]

Reassignments for Ramsar Bureau staff. Some recent Ramsar staff changes may be of interest to readers who need to correspond with us from time to time. As of 1 August, two of the Bureau's longstanding staff members have changed roles as part of an ongoing review of operations which aims to streamline the work of the secretariat's administrative team. Annette Keller Pavlic (keller@ramsar.org), who previously gave all her enthusiasm to the Small Grants Fund, is now directing that energy and commitment to administering all office and personnel support, including our highly successful Intern Programme and all other staffing matters. Importantly for those involved with the Convention's Standing Committee or STRP, Annette will now be the Bureau's contact person for the travel and other logistics for the meetings of these bodies. And, now that Annette has taken over these roles, this has allowed us to move Julia Tucker (tucker@ramsar.org) into the continuing growth area (we hope!!) of donor relations and programme coordination. Henceforth Julia will be the Bureau's primary contact point for the day-to-day running of the Small Grants Fund, the Evian Project, Wetlands for the Future, and all our other externally-funded projects and programmes. To complete the picture, these changes now mean that Paulette Kennedy (kennedy@ramsar.org), the Finance Officer, is the first point of contact for those of you with queries relating to MONEY, annual contributions, payments of any description, etc. [17/8/99] -- Bill Phillips, Deputy Secretary General

Penang Statement on Tropical Peatlands. The "International Conference and Workshop on Tropical Peat Swamps" was held in Penang, Malaysia, from 27 to 29 July 1999 and was jointly organized by the School of Biological Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), and the International Peat Swamp Research Group. It was attended by more than 140 technical experts and representatives from government agencies and international organizations from more than 10 countries mainly in the Southeast Asia region. The meeting urged governments, research institutions, NGOs, private sector and other organizations to achieve the following goal: "To minimize, stop or reverse the loss and degradation of Peat Swamp Forest Resources in Southeast Asia", and recommended ten actions to be undertaken.  Here is the text of the "Penang Statement on Tropical Peatlands". [4/8/99]

Costa Rica launches National Wetlands Programme. At a special ceremony at the Presidential House, the President of Costa Rica and the Minister of Environment and Energy will sign today, 27 July, a Presidential Decree establishing the National Wetlands Programme within that Ministry. The Decree states that Costa Rica, having recently hosted the Conference of the Parties to the Ramsar Convention, now has the moral obligation "to provide testimony to the world of the seriousness of our initiatives in favor of the conservation of these important ecosystems [referring to wetlands]". Here are some more details. [27/7/99]

New Ramsar Intern for Asia.Taeko Takahashi of Saitama, Japan, has accepted the Bureau's offer to spend a year in Gland as the next intern for Asia, replacing Ms Parastu Mirabzadeh of Iran. Ms Takahashi has a postgraduate degree in International Environmental Policy from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and spent time working at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainable Development in the United States, before returning to Japan a month ago. Most recently, Ms Takahashi has been researching the destructive impacts of shrimp farming on mangrove ecosystems and the impact of foreign direct investment on environmental standards. She spent a summer working with WWF-Japan, researching the impact of global climate change in national parks and protected areas, and has worked as a volunteer with CARE Japan. She speaks Japanese and English, with knowledge of  Spanish and Russian. Taeko will take up her Ramsar duties on 15 November. [26/7/99]

UK names five new Ramsar sites. Great Britain has designated five new Wetlands of International Importance, bringing its total number of Ramsar sites to 148, covering 753,844 hectares. All five have also been classified as Special Protection Areas under the EC Wild Birds Directive. They are: Cromarty Firth (4197 hectares), 20km north of Inverness, Scotland; Inner Moray Firth (2339 ha); Muir of Dinnet (158 ha); North Uist Machair and Islands Phase 1 (1560 ha), on the west and north coasts of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides, Western Isles of Scotland; Poole Harbour (2439 ha), on the south coast of England between the town of Poole and the Isle of Purbeck.  Read more about them here. [24/7/99]

Two excellent new books available. A superb new book has been published by the MedWet Initiative and the Station Biologique de la Tour du Valat, with financial support from the Ramsar Bureau and the WWF International Mediterranean Programme: Mediterranean Wetlands at the Dawn of the 21st Century (138 pages), by Thymio Papayannis (presently Ramsar's MedWet Coordinator) and Tobias Salathé (Ramsar's new Regional Coordinator for Europe), covers a wide range of issues and includes contributions by Gordana Beltram, Simone Borelli, Erik Carp, Antonio Fernández de Tejada, Luc Hoffmann, Tim Jones, Mike Moser, Christian Perennou, Jean-Yves Pirot, Jamie Skinner, Mike Smart and many others. With excellent production values and many fine photographs, the book is a must read and a major reference on the MedWet Initiative and much more.   Inquire with Tour du Valat, secretariat@tour-du-valat.com. Inventario de Humedales del Ecuador, 1: Humedales Lénticos de la Provincias de Esmeraldas y Manabí, by Ernesto E. Briones and others, has been published in Quito by EcoCiencia, INEFAN, and the Convención de Ramsar, with the support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Detailed maps and solid scientific data make the work indispensable for students of Ecuador's natural heritage. [22/7/99]

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.