Dr Kobayashi seeks advice on salamanders
(posted to the Ramsar Forum, 26 April 2000)
Dear Forum members,
Sorry for this inquiry during the Easter holiday season. But could someone in the Forum help me for wetland conservation in Japan?
This year marks 20th anniversary for Japan's accession to the Ramsar Convention as well as the designation of Kushiro Marsh as its first Ramsar site. We are organizing a workshop to discuss the conservation of Kushiro Marsh on 29 April, focusing on endangered wetland wildlife, especially salamanders.
The Siberian salamanders are commonly found in the continent but only found within Kushiro Marsh in Japan. And its status in Japan is now considered as endangered. The main problem here is that their core habitats seem to be located outside the Kushiro Marsh National Park and the designated Ramsar site area. And, of course, there are a lot of development schemes outside the National Park area.
In order to draw more attention of the public to this problem, my colleagues and I would like to collect salamander-related conservation stories - preferably good ones. I found a story about the Barton Springs salamander very interesting and helpful. Are there any other interesting stories about salamander conservation?
Short description of other salamander-related stories or indicating just web sites would be great help to us.
Please contact: satoshi@kushiro-pu.ac.jp
Regards to all,
Satoshi Kobayashi
Assistant Professor for Environmental Geography
Kushiro Public University
Kushiro, 085-8585 JAPAN
[note: Dr Kobayashi served in the Ramsar Bureau as Technical Officer for Asia, 1991-1996.]
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