The Ramsar Bulletin Board, 4 January 2001
Headline story.Colombia adopts policy for coastal zones. Fabian Navarrete Le Bas, Coordinador Ecosistemas Acuáticos in the Ministerio del Medio Ambiente in Colombia, reports that on 5 December 2000 the Consejo Nacional Ambiental approved the "Política Nacional Ambiental para el Desarrollo Sostenible del los Espacios Oceánicos y Zonas Costeras e Insulares de Colombia" (National Environmental Policy for the Sustainable Development of the Ocean and Coastal Areas and Islands of Colombia). The Bureau has received a Microsoft Word version of this Spanish-language document and would be pleased to forward it by e-mail attachment to all interested parties. Make your request to 
. [4/1/01]
New Year's greetings. The staff of the Bureau of the Convention on Wetlands wish all of their friends and collaborators around the world a healthy and productive new year. [1/1/01]
Who's where?
Ramsar staff will be conspicuous by their absence from IUCN HQ until about 3 January. A few of them may wander in to the Bureau from time to time, but since the heat's been turned down, the cafeteria's dark and locked, and the mail and the DHL/FedEx/TNT's been turned off, it might be best to save your urgent inquiries about the wise use of wetlands until people begin to peek in again after hols. [25/12/00]
Najjam Khurshid, Regional Coordinator for Asia, is on mission to Nepal and Sri Lanka. More details may follow soon. [21/12/00]
New on the Site:The Wetland Values and Functions info pack has been reprinted here in its resplendent entirety; World Wetlands Day inspirational message from the Secretary General(English, French, & Spanish versions);Winners of SWS's Ramsar grants for 2001. [29/12/00]
Other texts newly on the Site: Two Ramsar Advisory Mission reports from 1988: no. 8, Parc national d'oiseaux du Djoudj and no. 9, Réserve spéciale de faune du N’diaël, Sénégal. [29/12/00]
Participatory Management Networking Service (PMNS) getting started. Amongst all its many deep deliberations, the 25th meeting of the Ramsar Standing Committee pondered the question of the implementation of Resolution VII.8 on participation of local communities and indigenous people in wetland management, and at the end of the day welcomed the joint initiative by IUCN, WWF, and the Ramsar Bureau to establish a Participatory Management Networking Service (PMNS), to be managed by IUCN’s Social Policy Programme (Decision SC25-8). The Participatory Management Networking Service (PMNS) is intended to facilitate the dissemination of information concerning participatory management of natural resources (Collaborative Management, Community-Based Management and Indigenous Peoples Management). PMNS will link existing networks and institutions to promote a better flow of rich and diverse experience, providing a common space to share lessons learned, it is said. Learn a bit more about it here. [21/12/00]
'Wetland Values and Functions' info pack now available. As part of the Ramsar Convention’s contribution to World Wetlands Day 2001, the Bureau has prepared an information pack, in English, French, and Spanish versions, consisting of ten fact sheets on the values and functions of wetlands. Individual single-page front-and-back two-color fact sheets cover the basic ideas, and wherever possible assign monetary values, in order to help demonstrate the importance of wetlands in the most fundamental economic and cost-benefit terms. Topics covered include: Flood Control, Groundwater Replenishment, Shoreline Stabilisation & Storm Protection, Sediment & Nutrient Retention and Export, Climate Change Mitigation, Water Purification, Reservoirs of Biodiversity, Wetland Products, Recreation/ Tourism, and Cultural Value. Get more detail and ordering information here. [19/12/00] FOLLOW-UP HEADLINE:The entire Wetland Values and Functions info pack is now also available in English, French, and Spanish in reprint form on this Web site, courtesy of Ms Sandra Hails. Just kick your boots up on your brocaded footstool, lean back in a relaxed manner with a cigar or whatever, and click here to get started. [21/12/00]
Ramsar exhibit replicated on posters. The justly-famous "Ramsar Exhibit" was unveiled in May 2000 to deafening applause and has already stunned crowds of passersby in large venues in Nairobi, Québec City, Tokyo, Amman, and Bonn. Now, on the occasion of World Wetlands Day 2001 and the 30th anniversary of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, the Ramsar Bureau has come to the aid of all those Friends of Wetlands yearning for their own Ramsar Exhibits and has developed a poster exhibit which reproduces in a relatively low-cost manner that very same magnificent original. Like its parent, the Ramsar Poster Exhibit was designed by Saatchi & Saatchi Switzerland and funded by the communications segment of the Evian Project, financed for the Ramsar Convention by the private-sector Danone Group and the French GEF. Get more detail and ordering information here. [19/12/00]
Announcement. Mangrove Action Project sets art and poetry contest for kids.Monica Alicia Paz Gutierrez-Quarto, Calendar Project Coordinator for the Mangrove Action Project (monicaquarto@mixmail.com and mangroveap@olympus.net) writes to the Ramsar Forum: "The Mangrove Action Project is seeking your assistance in celebrating our 10th anniversary in 2002! We are sponsoring an international children's art and poetry competition and would like children in your country to enter this contest and learn more about the important roles that mangrove forests play. Specifically we would like you to contact schools and teachers in your area and provide them with information regarding this contest, and also to act as a liaison between MAP and the local schools and as a resource person regarding mangrove and ecological information." The full details have been reprinted on this Web site. [22/12/00]
Ramsar 30th Anniversary poster is ready in time for World Wetlands Day 2001. 2 February 2001 is the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands in the city of Ramsar, Iran, and a new poster has been developed to commemorate the Convention's work in alleviating the worst effects of the continuing loss of wetland values and functions around the world. This sobering outreach item is guaranteed to cast a long shadow over any festive occasion and invite earnest inquiries about what we can do to reverse present trends -- it's available in reasonable quantities in the three Ramsar languages, and more details are available here. [16/12/00]
Ramsar inventory workshop produces "Inventory Route Map". The Wetland Inventory Training Workshop, organized by the Ramsar Bureau and the IUCN East Africa Regional Office and held in Kampala, Uganda, 6-9 December 2000 with funding support from Switzerland’s Ramsar Africa Grant, included participants from Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. The purpose of the workshop was to define the needs for wetland inventory in relation to wise wetland use at national and local levels; examine the choices of wetland inventory types to provide the most cost-effective information that is required; discuss the various methods and approaches to wetland inventory and the minimum information needed; and learn from the practical experiences of Uganda and other countries involved in inventories, amongst other goals. The meetings developed an "Inventory Route Map" from the African perspective, and this will be fed into the ongoing work of the Convention’s subsidiary scientific body (the STRP) on wetland inventory methodologies. This very interesting "Route Map" is still unofficial, but this Microsoft PowerPoint presentation may be of interest to many members of the Ramsar family and is available for download here. (Readers will need to have PowerPoint installed in order to view this 200kb file.) Now you say 1) "Please send me this nice Inventory Route Map .ppt" or you say 2) "No, thank you, maybe later". [16/12/00]
Ramsar Guidelines on big chocolate soup pots. In December 1602 (we're told), the Savoyards attacked the city of Geneva (now part of Switzerland), and the civic wives turned the invaders away by pouring huge pots of hot soup down upon them as they tried to climb the city walls. Genevans commemorate this triumphant occasion every year by 1) admiring, 2) breaking, and 3) devouring huge soup pots made of Swiss chocolate. Here is your opportunity to watch Ramsar Bureau staff as they celebrate this "Escalade" anniversary by 1) admiring, 2) breaking, and 3) devouring huge soup pots made of Swiss chocolate. [16/12/00]
United Kingdom extends Ramsar site in the Western Isles. The site known as North Uist Machair and Islands, Phase 1 (RS no. 1004, 1,560 hectares, designated July 1999) in the Outer Hebrides islands of Scotland has now got its "Phase 2", effective 3 November, with the integration of further nearby SSSIs (Sites of Special Scientific Interest) into the site. The word "machair" refers to areas of grassland upon sand, commonly behind coastal sand dunes in northwestern Scotland. The Ramsar site, now including 4,705 hectares in this astonishingly beautiful area, qualifies under Criterion 6 by supporting internationally important numbers of Dunlin and Ringed Plover during the breeding season and Barnacle Goose, Ringed Plover, and Turnstone during the winter. The total designation, which is also a Special Protection Area under the EC Directive, now includes four sites on the west and north coasts of North Uist and all or part of three islands in the Sound of Harris south of Lewis and Harris. The RSPB maintains a small visitors’ centre and guided walks at the Balranald Bog part of the site. The spread of the invasive American mink is considered to be a potential threat and measures are being taken. [15/12/00]
Society of Wetland Scientists unveils its Ramsar Support Grant Program Awards for 2001.Eric Gilman, chair of the SWS International Committee, has announced the names of the winners of the SWS Ramsar Support Framework grants programme, which offers four US$ 5,000 grants annually to SWS members in developing countries who are engaged in work aimed at implementing the Ramsar Convention, funded jointly by the SWS and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The winning projects for 2001 are those by Paul Mafabi, Programme Coordinator of Uganda's National Wetlands Programme; Milan Valachovic of the Institute of Botany, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Department of Geobotany, Slovakia; Sergio Gabriel Domber, Manager of the Parque Nacional Laguna Blanca, Argentina; and Edgar Gonzales of the Asociación Kechua Aymara para la Conservación de la Naturaleza y el Desarrollo Sostenible (ANDES) and Indigenous People’s Biodiversity Network (IPBN), NGOs based in Peru, jointly with Francesco Giro, Director of Fundación Natura, Spain. Brief descriptions of these projects can be seen here on this site, as can a basic run-down on the SWS Ramsar programme with last year's winning projects. [14/12/00]
WWF unveils "Water and Wetland Index" for European accession countries. On 5 December 2000 in Brussels, Belgium, the WWF European Freshwater Programme launched the first component of its Water and Wetland Index, the whole of which will be ready in time for ceremonies on 1 February 2001, for reporting on World Wetlands Day. The press release for this early launch, covering the European "Accession Countries" (Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia and Turkey), notes that these countries "have rivers, lakes and wetlands that are more natural and in a better state
than many found in the EU, and may have less difficulty than expected in complying with the requirements of the EU Water Framework Directive." "The belief that these accession countries have overwhelming problems with the state of their rivers and lakes is ill-founded" said Bent Hygum of WWF's European Freshwater Programme. "While blackspots undoubtedly exist, many rivers and lakes of these countries will offer the EU great natural wealth and contribute strongly to the EU's biodiversity. The Mesta, Rába, Hornád, Hron, Narva, Kizilirmak and Göksu rivers, the Rila, Strbské pleso and Vel'ké Hinbcovo lakes and the wetland delta of the Gediz are among the pearls of Europe." The whole press release and related materials are available at www.wwffreshwater.org/wwi/accession/overview.html, and the European Freshwater Programme can be found at www.panda.org/europe/freshwater. Inquiries can be directed to Mark Vanderbeeken in Copenhagen, m.vanderbeeken@wwf.dk . [14/12/00] [Links are now out of date (2004).]
Ramsar and the coral reef crisis.Gilberto Cintron, US Fish and Wildlife Service, represented the Ramsar Convention at the 9th International Coral Reef Symposium in Bali, Indonesia, October 2000, and the associated ICRI coordination meetings, and filed this report on the meetings. [12/12/00]
Mexico names a new site in theYucatán Peninsula. The Ramsar Bureau is delighted to report that Mexico has designated, as its 7th Wetland of International Importance, "Dzilam (reserva estatal)" (61,707 ha; 21°35’N 088°35’W). Dzilam is a coastal and marine reserve located in the north of the Yucatán Peninsula, adjacent to the Ría Lagartos Ramsar site. The site includes a unique hydrological system, "anillo de cenotes", a formation caused by the impact of a huge meteor. This site comprises various habitats: marine areas of the continental platform, seagrass beds, intertidal lagoons, sandy dune shores, flooded jungle, dry low jungle and medium height jungle. The site provides important habitat for more than 20,000 waterbirds, such as the Mexican pink flamingo and many other migratory species. It is also an important habitat for a wide diversity of species and life history stages of fish, molluscs and crustaceans, some of them with a high commercial value, and it provides habitat for several endemic, threatened and endangered species of cactus, reptiles and amphibians. The site has extremely important cultural values, as it was an area of residence of prehispanic cultures. 14,000 hectares of the site belong to private landowners. About 68% of the population residing in the area derive their livelihoods from fishing, hunting and agriculture, 8.5% from trade, 7.5% from industry, 4% from tourism, and the rest work for the government. This is the 1044th Ramsar site globally. [11/12/00] [français et/y español]
Mauritania designates its third Ramsar site. The Ramsar Bureau is very pleased to announce that Mauritania has designated its third Wetland of International Importance, as of 10 November 2000. "Chat Tboul" (15,500 ha; roughly 16°33’N 16°24’W) lies along the Atlantic coast, immediately north of the Parc National du Diawling Ramsar site, around a former mouth of the Senegal river. Behind a ca.10km strip of coastal dunes, in some areas with a cover of Sahelian-type vegetation, the site includes a number of wetland types, from both permanent and temporary brackish and saline lakes and pools, estuarine waters, intertidal mud/sand flats and forested wetlands, sandy shores, and intertidal marshes. The site qualifies under the uniqueness and biodiversity Criteria, as well as under the 1% threshold for waterbirds (6) -- with several species (including Pelecanus onocrotalus, Phoenicopterus ruber, Larus genei, and Recurvirostra avosetta) meeting that standard -- and under Criterion 8 on importance for fish stocks. A number of small-scale traditional fishing and transhumant grazing practices are seen in the area, which also receives an annual allotment of fresh water under the management plan of the Diawling Park. Possible threats are foreseen from a proposal concerning evacuation of agricultural run-off from rice fields and from overexploitation of coastal fish stocks, as well as from the spread of shrimp and lobster farming. This is the 1043th Ramsar site globally. [9/12/00] [français et/y español]
WATC wetland management and restoration course brochures available here. Every year since 1994, the Institute for Inland Water Management and Waste Water Treatment (RIZA), part of the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management in The Netherlands, has hosted the International Course in Wetland Management at the Wetlands Advisory and Training Centre (WATC) in Lelystad. Over the past few years, RIZA has also hosted an International Course on Wetland Restoration. Both 4-6 week, certificate-granting courses are organized according to Ramsar Convention principles (the Ramsar Secretary General serves as chair of the Advisory Board), and many graduates have returned to their own countries with a thorough experience of the Convention's work both in theory and practice. The next iteration of the International Course on Wetland Management will take place in Lelystad, 23 August to 3 October 2001, and the International Course on Wetland Restoration will take place in Lelystad, 6 June to 5 July 2001. Brochures and application forms (in PDF format) are available here. [since removed] [10/12/00]
Wetlands International's Specialist Groups workshop furthers Ramsar objectives. On Nov 4-5, Wetlands International held a 2-day workshop involving its global and regional staff, Specialist Groups, other of Ramsar's International Partner Organizations (BirdLife, IUCN) and Ramsar Bureau staff (Nick Davidson and Tobias Salathé). The Workshop's primary aim was to review the working relationships between the various parts of Wetlands International's network and to chart a strategic direction for its future work. A number of key areas of activity were identified for future development - work that will further strengthen the valuable role that Wetlands International delivers as one of the Ramsar Convention’s four International Partner Organizations. As part of the meetings, Wetlands International hosted workshops to further develop Ramsar site selection and designation guidance for wet grasslands, peatlands and threatened waterbirds - part of its lead role as a member of Ramsar's STRP - and reviewed the draft project concept for a Ramsar Wetlands Training and Advisory Service, prepared by Wetlands International for the Ramsar Bureau and recently endorsed by the Standing Committee. Background papers, workshop reports and photos of this fruitful meeting are now available at http://www.wetlands.agro.nl/Wetlands_ICU/SGroups/Workshop2000/Workshop.htm . [8/12/00]
Inventory training workshop now under way in Uganda. The Ramsar Bureau's Anada Tiéga (left) is in Kampala, Uganda, for the second Ramsar African training session on National Wetland Inventory. This workshop, 6-8 December, is intended for English-speaking African officers and has been funded from the Swiss African Grant, generously maintained every year over the past decade or so by the Government of Switzerland for Ramsar's wetland conservation actions in Africa. The first National Wetland Inventory training session, attended by French-speaking Contracting Parties in Africa, was held in Cameroon in March 2000 and financed from the Evian Project, supplied to the Ramsar Convention by the private sector Danone Group. [5/12/00]
Announcement. Draft agenda available for Ramsar COP8. The 8th Meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties of the Convention on Wetlands is slated to take place in Valencia, Spain, 18 to 26 November 2002. The Provisional Agenda and Programme, including Technical Session subjects, has been approved by the Standing Committee at its 25th meeting in October 2000. The English and Spanish versions of the provisional agenda are available here now. [4/12/00]
Wetlands International strengthens Ramsar Database team.Scott Frazier, Senior Wetland Inventory Officer at Wetlands International, reports: "Ellen Amting, a Dutch National from Amsterdam, joined us today as Wetland Database Management Assistant. She replaces Jantien van Oord, who recently moved to Haarlem. Ellen will bring the Ramsar Database team back up to full strength and will assist with our other wetland database managment. Ellen studied Tropical Ecology at the University of Amsterdam. She has done research and/or fieldwork in spatial/landcover/vegetation (including wetlands) issues in Senegal, Kenya, Burkina Faso and the Netherlands. She has a keen interest in GIS as evidenced by previous and ongoing course work. She was a database management assistant on a Soil Information System before joining us. Welcome Ellen!" [2/12/00]
Morava floodplain is subject of impressive new DAPHNE book. A new 188-page hardcover book in Slovak and English has been published by DAPHNE (Centre for Applied Ecology, Slovak Republic) with support from the PHARE Programme of the European Commission, as well as WWF, the GEF, and the Slovak Ministry. This very useful book, called "Morava River Floodplain Meadows – Importance, Restoration and Management", is the result of six years of research and restoration works conducted by DAPHNE. It shows the importance of wetlands as ecological and economical resources, explains the main functions and roles of floodplain meadows, reflects historical changes and provides detailed analysis on the impact of different natural and human-induced factors on meadow communities. It also provides recommendations on restoration of floodplain meadows, based on field experiments. The chapter on "Economic valuation of benefits from conservation and restoration of floodplain meadows" shows that conservation and restoration as well as sustainable use of the river floodplains have a significant monetary value. Findings in this chapter could be a useful tool to convince decision-makers that investments in restoration of meadows are not only beneficial for conservation of biological diversity, but also profitable. Available from bookstores, ISBN 80-967471-5-0; more information is available from Ján Seffer, DAPHNE ( daphne@changenet.sk ). -- reported by Inga Racinska [30/11/00].
Final report of Evian training project in Papua New Guinea. Aaron Jenkins, Wetlands International - Oceania, reports on the successful results of a wetlands training/survey project carried out in July 2000 under the auspices of the Ramsar Convention's Evian Project, with generous funding from the private sector Danone Group. Here is his brief report, with a few photos. [28/11/00]
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 Bureau.
