The Ramsar Bulletin Board, 6 September 2010

Workshop to review implementation of the Regional Wetlands Action Plan for the Pacific Islands

From 2 to 4 August 2010, a workshop was held in Nouméa, New Caledonia to review the implementation of the 1999 Regional Wetlands Action Plan for the Pacific Islands, and to develop a new Action Plan for the coming three years. This was followed by a series of training session from 5-6 August on Ramsar implementation processes (for Ramsar Contracting Parties) and accession procedures (for non-Contracting Parties). More [06/09/10]

IUCN press release on African freshwater species threatened – livelihoods at stake

IUCN announced today that twenty-one per cent of freshwater species in continental Africa are threatened with extinction, putting the livelihoods of millions of people at risk. With so much to lose, inland waters must be managed not just for their supply of freshwater but also to sustain the abundant life within. More [01/09/10]

New staff member for the Secretariat

The Secretariat is very pleased to announce that Dr Paul Ouedraogo is expected to join the Secretariat at the beginning of November as Senior Advisor for Africa. A citizen of Burkina Faso, Paul has many years' experience in working on environmental matters, including forest and wildlife management as well as wetland conservation and sustainable use, both at local level and nationally. More [31/08/10]

A message from Peter Bridgewater, Chair of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, UK

The following brief report describes the use of name badges used at the recent Parks Forum meeting in Australia, made from degradable, mostly recyclable materials by the local community at the Mabamba Bay Ramsar Site, in Uganda. More [30/08/10]

Building capacity for Ramsar CEPA Focal Points in central Asia and eastern Europe, Urmia Lake, I.R Iran from 9-13 August

The third in a series of workshops for Ramsar CEPA Focal Points brought together CEPA Focal Points and other representatives from 14 countries from central Asia and eastern Europe from 9-13 August. The workshop took place at the Bari Resort on the shores of the beautiful Lake Urmia, a 483,000-hectare Ramsar Site in the north west of the country. More [30/08/10]

Wisconsin's 100 Wetlands Gems

The Wisconsin Wetlands Association has recently published Wisconsin’s Wetland Gems, a full-colour guide to Wisconsin’s 100 Wetland Gems - high quality habitats that represent the wetland riches (marshes, swamps, bogs, fens, and more) that historically made up a quarter of Wisconsin’s landscape. More [23/08/10]

Call for abstracts: 2nd Conference of the Southern African Young Water Professionals. The International Water Association (IWA) and the Water Institute of Southern Africa (WISA) are inviting postgraduate students and young professionals working in the water and wastewater sector in Africa to submit abstracts relevant to the conference to be held on 3 to 5 July 2011 in Pretoria, South Africa.

The conference aims to provide a forum for young researchers and practitioners in water and wastewater science, governance, engineering, technology, management and other areas of the water sector, to present their work and meet their peers in multi-disciplinary fields of water research to further career development. Participants will be able to discuss current and future water management concerns. Read the announcement [18/08/10]

Muscat Action Plan for Wetlands in the Arab Countries

The ‘Muscat Action Plan for Wetlands in the Arab Countries’ was recently finalised, following the “Workshop on Wetlands and the Ramsar Convention in the Arabian Peninsula”, in Muscat, Oman from 7 - 9 June 2010... More [16/08/10]

Interested in exchanging news and opinions on wetland- and Ramsar-related issues?

Join the Ramsar Forum mailing list! The Ramsar Forum is the public electronic mailing list of the Convention on Wetlands, which was begun in 1997 and is maintained by the Ramsar Convention Secretariat in Gland, Switzerland. There are presently more than 1,000 Forum members. More [13/08/10]

 Who's Where?

• Ramsar's Senior Advisor for Europe, Tobias Salathé, is taking part and giving a lecture in a national Ramsar seminar in Bonn, Germany, from 3-4 September. He will then give a lecture at the NATO Advanced Study Institute “Watershed approach to Environmental Security” focusing on the Don and Azov Sea basin, in Rostov, Russian Federation from 5 to 10 September. [02/09/10]
  
  From 6 to 9 September Nick Davidson, Deputy Secretary General, is participating in the annual Stockholm World Water Week (SWWW), including in a UN-WATER partners meeting, and speaking on the Ramsar Convention and water in an SWWW symposium on “International Year of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management: Science-Policy Interfaces”. [06/09/10]
  

For more old Ramsar Secretariat travel news, see also 'Who Was Where', 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010

‘National Consultative Workshop on Wetlands’ in Bhutan

On 14 July 2010, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MoAF) of the Kingdom of Bhutan held a one-day ‘National Consultative Workshop on Wetlands’. The aim of the workshop was to provide updates on the progress of wetland conservation in Bhutan and to discuss the benefits of accession to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, and the commitments that the government would have to abide by if the country were to become a Contracting Party. More [05/08/10]

New Transboundary Ramsar Site declared by Belarus and Lithuania

The Secretariat is very pleased to announce that the governments of Belarus and Lithuania have added the existing Ramsar Sites “Kotra” (designated in 2002) in Grodno Oblast, Belarus, and “Čepkeliai” (designated in 1993) in Alytus county, Lithuania, to the list of Transboundary Ramsar Sites. More | español | français [04/08/10]

Ramsar's Senior Advisor for Europe reports on a "full size" river plan for the Loire in France

The river Loire in France is known to many for its outstanding cultural landscape of great beauty, containing historic towns and villages, great architectural monuments (the châteaux), and cultivated lands formed by many centuries of interaction between their population and the physical environment, primarily the river Loire itself. More [03/08/10]

Vacancy for Technical Assistant at the CEDAMM training Centre, Lopé National Park in Gabon

This position vacancy was advertised earlier, but as there was no suitable candidate, the Centre decided to re-open it.

The CEDAMM training centre was created in 2004 for training professionals in the field of protected areas to conduct training for conservation, management of protected areas, project management, monitoring, inventories, etc. it also has an orchid garden and a museum that support the training. More [30/07/10]

Spain designates five new Ramsar Sites in Andalucía

The government of Spain has designated four new Nature Reserves (Reserva Natural) and one Natural Area (Paraje Natural) as Wetlands of International Importance in Andalucía, in the south of the Iberian peninsula of Spain. Ramsar’s Advisory team for Europe has prepared brief site descriptions, based upon the Ramsar Information Sheets provided by the Ramsar authority in Spain. More | Español | Français [29/07/10]

Workshop on Murray-Darling Basin climate adaptation options

In mid-July 2010 a group of 18 wetland and water management experts met in Canberra, Australia to review options for coping with adapting to a changing climate in the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), south-east Australia’s major river catchment. More [29/07/10]

RRC-CWA Vacancy Announcement

The Ramsar Regional Centre for Training and Research on Wetlands in Central and West Asia (RRC-CWA) has vacancies for an Administrative Officer and a Communication Officer. A 12 month renewable contract is offered with a trial period of three months. Applications should be sent in English to the RRC-CWA Director before 30 August 2010. More [28/07/10]

Feedback and suggestions are welcome to the Ramsar Convention Secretariat, Rue Mauverney 28, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland (tel +41 22 999 0170, fax +41 22 999 0169, e-mail ).