Ramsar, peatlands, and climate change

Wetlands, peatlands, and climate change at the UNFCCC COP12

The 8th meeting of the Conference of the Ramsar Parties in Valencia (Spain, 2002) called upon Contracting Parties to manage their wetlands so as to increase their resilience to climate change and extreme climatic events, and to reduce the risk of flooding and drought by, inter alia, promoting wetland and watershed protection and restoration.

Ramsar Resolution VIII.3 called upon Parties and other organizations to undertake studies of the role of wetlands in carbon storage and sequestration and in mitigating the impacts of sea-level rise, and to make their findings available to the Convention. In particular, Ramsar's Coordinating Committee on Global Action for Peatlands (established through Resolution VIII.17 on peatlands) has recognized the importance of peatlands as carbon stores. At the upcoming 12th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Nairobi, Kenya, 6-17 November 2006 (for details, see www.unfccc.int) there will be a number of events arranged by Wetlands International and the Global Environment Centre reporting on the outputs of a recent UNEP/GEF project on the integrated management of peatlands for biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation, based on field studies in the Russian Federation, China, Indonesia and other places.