News from the CEPA e-mail list

National Ramsar Committees - a good model (25/06/07)

Greetings CEPA list members:

I’ve recently had the pleasure of attending the meeting of one of Ramsar’s oldest and certainly one of the most successful National Ramsar/Wetland Committees. I believe most members of the Ramsar world see the need to have a cross-sectoral and broadly representative national committee to strategically plan and oversee the implementation of the Convention, yet a look at our national reports would suggest that this is still a problem area for many countries. Austria provides a sound model.

The Austrian Administrative Authority for Ramsar has had 19 years of experience in running its committee so it is perhaps not surprising that they are pretty good at it! It’s not just that they have good cross-sectoral representation, as well as representation from their semi-autonomous states and their key NGOs, it’s also important that they meet face-to-face on a regular basis, usually once or twice per year. They hold the meeting in different states/provinces on a rotational basis and take ‘time out’ from the meeting room, papers and powerpoint presentations, to visit Ramsar sites, to talk to each other more informally and share their many experiences that have importance for implementing the Convention.

Read the full story of their most recent meeting here (with some pictures) http://www.ramsar.org/outreach_news_austria_nationalramsarcomms.htm.

With best wishes from a very wet Switzerland, Sandra Hails, Ramsar Secretariat

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Sandra Hails, CEPA Programme Officer
Ramsar Convention Secretariat
Rue Mauverney 28, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 999 0176; Fax: +41 22 999 0169
E-mail: hails@ramsar.org
Web Site: http://ramsar.org
CEPA mini-Web site: http://ramsar.org/outreach_index.htm

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