Science support officer for the Ramsar Secretariat

New position for Ramsar Secretariat has been filled

The Secretariat is pleased to announce that Dr. Edgar Kaeslin from Switzerland has been selected to the new position of Scientific and Technical Support Officer. The position has been created in order to provide enhanced scientific and technical capacity in the Secretariat, including in particular support to the work of the Scientific and Technical Review Panel (STRP), the Convention's subsidiary body charged with preparing scientific and technical reports as well as guidelines for the implementation of the Convention.

Edgar brings to the Secretariat a broad educational background in Biological Sciences. He has most recently worked as Scientific Collaborator at the Centre for Development and Environment, Institute of Geography at the University of Berne, Switzerland. Before that he worked for two years as UNDP GEF Small Grants Programme Technical Adviser and supervising manager of environmental projects in Kenya's Coast Province. He gained experience with environmental impact assessments and studies from five years as Project Manager in the Ecology Department of a Swiss Engineering Company. Edgar also lived in Ecuador when he was doing his PhD field work in an Amazonian lowland rain forest, measuring the incredible diversity of birds and how it is affected by forest degradation and ecotourism.

Edgar is able to work in the three languages of the Convention in addition to his native German.

Edgar is attending the STRP Mid-term workshops that are taking place in Gland this week, and the Secretariat is looking forward to welcoming him formally as part of the team in April 2007.