Staff news from the Ramsar Secretariat

Ramsar appoints a Convention Development Officer

It is a pleasure to announce that, following an advertisement for the Ramsar Secretariat position of "Convention Development Officer" in July/August and a field of over 60 good applicants, the selection panel has unanimously chosen Sebastià Semene Guitart, who will start in the position on 1 October 2004. Sebastià has already been working in the Secretariat since January, seconded from Andorra, as Special Assistant: Media, Outreach & Culture. Prior to this he was Director of the Centre for Biodiversity of the Institute for Andorran Studies, a government agency charged with inventorying and monitoring Andorra's biodiversity. Among other events, the CBD-Andorra organises an annual international congress involving professionals and university students to discuss and debate an environmental issue. He has a PhD from the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE) - Sorbonne (France), in the area of Conservation and Evolutionary Biology. Sebastià has also been working for five years as a journalist for one of Andorra's national newspapers and also had some experience with radio broadcasting.

Sebastià Semene (right) with Spyros Kouvelis
at Ecocinema, June 2004

His new duties will include:

• preparing and implementing strategies for the development of the Convention, inter alia working with Standing Committee and Parties on preparation of draft decisions and resolutions on new directions, and ensuring that the work of the Scientific and Technical Review Panel (STRP) is incorporated into such developments;
• contributing to the organization of the Conference of the Parties, notably oversight of communications/media aspects, and liaising with the host country on promotional and other aspects , and, critically;
• ensuring that national reports are prepared and analysed for COP9.

While he will be known already to some, this range of duties means that many of you will meet him in the coming months, in person or virtually, as COP9 draws closer. His email contact is ssg@ramsar.org and his telephone is +41 22 999 0121.

Peter Bridgewater
Secretary General