News from the CEPA e-mail list

Wetlands and human health - Ramsar request for information (11/02/08)

Good morning CEPA list members:

Below is a message from a member of our Scientific and Technical Review Panel, Max Finlayson. For those of you not so familiar with how Ramsar operates, this Panel is the technical work arm of the Convention, responsible for overseeing the production of our technical guidance. Please respond directly to Max with any information you may have.

Best wishes, Sandra Hails, Ramsar Secretariat
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Dear All

As part of the Scientific and Technical Review Panel’s workplan for 2006-08 a working group is preparing a report on wetland and human health. We discussed this at the STRP meeting held last week in Gland.

In doing this we are interpreting ‘human health’ in a wide context and as a part of human well-being as considered in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment that was published in 2005 after 4-5 years of multi-authored input, assessment and review. See reports at http://www.MAweb.org.

To complete the report we would like to include further examples of the interactions between human health and wetlands from a wide geographic range of wetland types. If you have information and literature that may assist in doing this please send this to myself at the following email address – mfinlayson@csu.edu.au.

We intend to include specific examples in ‘boxes’ inserted into the text, or reference particular information and publications in the text. Topics that we may cover include examples of disease associated with wetlands but also beneficial effects such as nutrition and livelihoods from improved diets and food production, freshwater supply and sanitation, treatment of waste waters, recreational and social etc outcomes……plus also information on the interventions that have occurred to ensure better health-related outcomes for people.

If your information is not in English we would still like you to send it with a succinct summary in English; if this is not possible we will try to find some one who can help us extract the required information.

There is no need to respond directly to the CEPA list unless you wish to engage in a wider discussion of this topic and associated issues.

Best wishes and thanks,

Max Finlayson
Professor for Ecology and Biodiversity
Director, Institute for Land, Water and Society
Charles Sturt University
PO Box 789 Albury, NSW 2640
Australia
Office phone: +61-(0)2-60519779; Mobile phone: +61-(0)458271580; Facsimile: +61-(0)2-60519797; Web: www.csu.edu.au/research/ilws/

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