The Ramsar Bulletin Board, 3 June 1998

Headline Story: Thailand joins the Convention. The Bureau is delighted to announce the accession of Thailand as the Convention’s 110^th Contracting Party. Thailand joined the Convention as of 13 May 1998 and so the treaty will come into force on 13 September. The new Party’s first Wetland of International Importance is "Kuan Ki Sian of the Thale Noi Non-Hunting Area Wetlands" (493.6 hectares) -- more information here. [29/5/98]

Another Headline Story:3rd Pan-European Regional Meeting. Ramsar's 3rd Pan-European Regional Meeting gets underway today in Riga, Latvia, on Wednesday 3 June, hosted by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development. More than 100 participants, representing almost all of the 40 European Contracting Parties and many international organizations, are registered to attend. The programme focuses on four key technical themes of special importance to implementation of the Convention in Europe: 1) Transboundary Cooperation; 2) National and Regional Wetland Policies; 3) Wetland Restoration and Rehabilitation; 4) Building financial and technical capacity for wetland conservation. Each theme will be introduced by a key-note speaker and developed through case-study-led discussion.

There will also be two plenary sessions devoted to an overview of the current status of the Convention in Europe and preparations for the 7th COP in Costa Rica. Special attention will be given to briefing delegates on the preparation of National Reports, the deadline for submission of which is only 3 months away. Here is the programme (and speakers) for the meeting. [3/6/98]

Yesterday's Headline Story: Canada names a new Ramsar site. Canada has designated Lac Saint-Pierre, an 11,952-hectare area of delta and shoreline along the St. Lawrence River in Québec, as its 36th Ramsar site.  The area includes a chain of some 100 islands, a group of wide bays, and very wide spaces of open water.  The letter from the Minister of the Environment, Christine S. Stewart, notes that "the nomination of this site is firmly supported through the efforts of the Ministère de l'Environnement et de la Faune, federal agencies, local municipalities and conservation organizations, as well as private landowners.   It truly represents a local partnership interested in the recognition and protection of these wetlands, vitally important to waterfowl and a wide range of biodiversity."  The Lac Saint-Pierre site qualifies for the Ramsar List under Criteria 1(c) on representativeness and 2(a), 2(b), and 2(c) concerning biodiversity of plants and animals. [29/5/98]

Another Yesterday's Headline Story:Ramsar Pan-American Regional Meeting draws near.  With the regional meeting coming up in San José, Costa Rica, 17-20 June, approximately 100 participants are registered so far, with official delegates from all 21 Contracting Parties in the region as well as from at least 6 observer states.  All four Partner Organizations are registered, and so too are a number of observer organizations, such as the World Bank, OAS, US-AID, CCAD, and several national NGOs.   Simultaneous English/Spanish interpretation will be provided, and the documentation being prepared for the delegates will probably fill several planeloads.  Here is the meeting programme in English and Spanish. [28/5/98]

Still Another Yesterday's Headline Story: United Kingdom adds ten new Ramsar sites.  Delays in the paperwork have been set right for ten new sites in the UK, the designations of some of which had been announced in the UK some time ago.  Eight more announced designations are still in the pipeline.   The ten new sites added to the Ramsar List today are: Avon Valley, England, 1,385 hectares; Caithness Lochs, Scotland, 241 ha; Corsydd Mon a Llyn (Anglesey & Llyn Fens), Wales, 625 ha; Dornoch Firth & Loch Fleet, Northern Ireland, 7,836 ha; Larne Lough, Northern Ireland, 396 ha; Midland Meres & Mosses (phase 2), England/Wales, 1,588 ha; Moray & Nairn Coast, Scotland, 2,410 ha; Pettigoe Plateau, Northern Ireland, 1,264 ha; River Spey-Insh Marshes, Scotland, 1,176 ha; and Upper Lough Erne, Northern Ireland, 5,818 ha. [28/5/98]

A few days ago Headline Story:Syria joins the Convention. The paperwork has now been completed for the accession of Syria to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, with Lac de Sebkha al-Djabbul designated as its first Ramsar site. The Bureau does not yet have a Ramsar Information Sheet for this site. Because Syria's instrument of ratification reached UNESCO on 5 March 1998, it actually becomes the 107th Contracting Party, with the more recent Luxembourg and Belize as the 108th and 109th respectively. Syria is warmly welcomed into the Ramsar community. [26/5/98]

New on the Site:Canada's National Wetland Policy (Australia's follows tomorrow); French version of the STRP7 summary; "Advance unedited texts" of four decisions of the CBD's COP4; Minutes of the 7th meeting of the STRP, and a summary of the minutes in English (French and Spanish to follow), with photos. [3/6/98]

Who's Where?

This week, 2-7 June, Delmar Blasco, the Secretary General, Bill Phillips, the Deputy Secretary General; Tim Jones, Regional Coordinator for Europe, and other Bureau staff will be in Riga, Latvia, for the Ramsar Pan-European Regional Meeting. [3/6/98]

Announcements:

Position open at Wetlands International - Asia Pacific: Executive Director.  Here is the announcement. [28/5/98] [This position has been filled.]

Ramsar Pan-American Regional Meeting set for June.   See the brief description in Spanish and English. [24/5/98]

Audubon Society alert on Cheyenne Bottoms.   The National Audubon Society (USA) has issued an alert concerning impending threats to the Cheyenne Bottoms Ramsar site in the state of Kansas, USA.  Readers of the Audubon Web site are urged to contact the Governor of the Kansas, Bill Graves, with expressions of concern.  See http://www.audubon.org/bird/iba/alert9805.html. [23/5/98] [This link is out of date.]

RSPB Habitats action packs.  The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds' Education Resources programme announces the publication of the Habitats action packs for schools, four A1 full-color posters of Wetland, Heathland, Farmland, and Hills and Mountains -- brilliantly executed scenes illustrating good and bad ecosystem management principles -- with a 28-page photocopiable activity pack.  £10 plus postage from RSPB Education, the Lodge, Sandy, Beds. SG19 2DL, United Kingdom. [23/5/98]

New Web site for Coorong & Lower Lakes.  Newsletter no. 5 of The Wetlands Voice, "the newsletter for the Coorong and Lower Lakes Ramsar Management Plan" in Australia, announces the inauguration of their superb new Web site.  It's a model of an informative and entertaining site with lots to interest both general and local, and old and young, audiences.  It's at http://www.dehaa.sa.gov.au/herit_biodiv/ramsar. [23/5/98]

Wetland Bird Survey for the UK.  The British Trust for Ornithology, the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee have published The Wetland Bird Survey 1995-96: Wildfowl and Wader Counts, based on a new WeBS database developed by the BTO.  Introductory summaries cover recent developments, including the results of the Ramsar COP in Brisbane, and many graphs and maps highlight the data.   The 166-page book is available for £10 plus postage from the Natural History Book Service, 2-3 Wills Road, Totnes, Devon TQ9 5XN, UK (tel. +44 1803 865913). [23/5/98]

The Mangrove Action Project announces that its weekly electronic newsletter is now available on a temporary Web site address. If you wish to access this, you can find it at: http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Canopy/4999/latefriday.html [20/5/98]

WIWO reports announced. The Working Group on International Waterbird & Wetland Research, based in Zeist, The Netherlands, announces the publications of six new reports.  See the list of titles here.  [14/5/98]

This is Homebush Bay!!!!  Homebush Bay is part of Sydney Harbor, and thus part of the venue of the Sydney Summer Olympics in Australia in 2000, and also the venue of the planned Virtual Ramsar Site.  Here, for the joy and delectation of our regular readers, is an "advance unedited map" of the area, to give you something to hook your imaginations to as you await further details. [27/5/98]

Secretary General summarizes CBD COP4 for Ramsar.   Mr Delmar Blasco offers a very brief summary of the significance of the 4th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity for the Ramsar community, especially in regard to the COP4 decision on the Financial Mechanism.  You can read it here. [26/5/98]

Ramsar News from the CBD's COP4.  The 4th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity has concluded in Bratislava, Slovak Republic, with (thanks to excellent support from Ramsar Contracting Parties and Partner NGOs) extremely positive results for the Ramsar Convention's plans for increased cooperation between the two Conventions.  Decisions of COP4 endorsed the Proposed Joint Work Plan and called for cooperation with Ramsar in working for the biodiversity of both inland water ecosystems and marine and coastal zones.  The CBD secretariat has already posted "advance unedited texts" of all the decisions, and the four decisions mostly closely involving the Ramsar Convention have been reprinted on this Web site. [22/5/98]

SIDSnet well under way. On 24 April, during the 6th meeting of the Commission on Sustainable Development, the Alliance of Small Island States and UNDP's Sustainable Development Networking Programme hosted a demonstration of the new SIDSnet, a Web site dedicated to "building virtual global communities on island issues from the Barbados Plan of Action."  Visit the Web site at http://chacmool.sdnp.undp.org/ and read over this reprint of the background sheet that was distributed at the time. [20/5/98]

Belize becomes the 108th Contracting Party. Belize has deposited its instrument of accession as the 108th Party to the Ramsar Convention, as of 22 April, and the Convention will come into force for that country on 22 August 1998. The first Wetlands of International Importance designated by Belize for the Ramsar List are "Crooked Tree Lagoon Area" and "Mexico and Jones Lagoon Area", about which the Bureau does not yet have much information. Details will follow when the Bureau receives the Ramsar Information Sheets on these sites. [8/5/98]

Watersheds of the World: ecological value and vulnerability, a new book with data and maps (including Ramsar sites) on nearly 150 of the world's great watersheds, has just been published jointly by the World Resources Institute and the Worldwatch Institute.  Read about it here. [12/5/98]

Luxembourg joins the Convention. UNESCO has informed the Bureau that on 15 April 1998 Luxembourg completed the formalities to become the Ramsar Convention's 107th Contracting Party, so that the Convention will come into force for Luxembourg on 15 August. All 15 EU countries are now part of the Convention.  Haff Réimech has been named as the new Party's first Wetland of International Importance, a 313-hectare former quarry on the left bank of the river Moselle.  The wetland types listed for the site, based on the Ramsar Classification Scheme, are permanent freshwater marshes/pools, permanent freshwater lakes, seasonal/intermittent freshwater marshes/pools, and shrub-dominated wetlands.  Criteria cited are 1(d) [rare or unusual type of wetland for the region], 2(b) [special value for genetic and ecological diversity of the region], 3(b) [substantial numbers of individuals from particular groups of waterfowl], and 4(a) [indigenous fish species]. [7/5/98]

Important Deadline Approaching.  The Wetland Conservation Award.  The Ramsar Conservation Award was established in order to recognize and honor the contributions of individuals, organizations, and governments around the world in promoting the conservation and wise use of wetlands.   In October 1997 the Standing Committee will select three winners from among the nominees, and the awards, each accompanied by US$ 10,000 courtesy of the Danone Group as part of the Evian Project, will be conferred at COP7 in Costa Rica in May 1999.  The deadline for nominations is 31 July 1998, so if you have a special person or group in mind for one of these awards, now is the time to get focused.  Replicas of the Award nomination forms are available here in English, French, and Spanish, and you can get a nice paper brochure from the Bureau by sending a note to Valerie Higgins [4/5/98]

Wetlands International AEME moves into a new building.  After 11 May the new address will be Wetlands International - Africa, Europe, Middle East, Droevendaalsesteeg 3A, P. O. Box 7002, 6700 CA Wageningen, The Netherlands (tel. +31 317 478884, fax +31 317 478885, e-mail post@wetlands.agro.nl, Web http://www.wetlands.agro.nl/)

Asian Waterfowl Census is ready. The Asian Waterfowl Census 1994-1996: Results of the Coordinated Waterbird Census and an Overview of the Status of Wetlands in Asia, edited by Alvin Lopez and Taej Mundkur, has been published by Wetlands International, with financial support from the Ramsar Convention and the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), and is available from Wetlands International - Asia Pacific in Kuala Lumpur wiap@wiap.nasionet.net. The AWC is a coordinated international scheme for the collection and dissemination of information on waterbirds and wetlands; it forms part of the International Waterfowl Census, a global effort coordinated by Wetlands International and conducted once a year, during January.  Some 1,994 sites were covered at least once, including 75 wetlands which proved to meet the Ramsar criteria though only six of those are presently on the Ramsar List.  The editors, in their executive summary, call for particular attention to these sites in future, in order to identify their true potential for Ramsar nomination under Criterion 3(a). [30/4/98]

Costa Rica designates Isla del Coco as its 7th site. The Government of Costa Rica has designated a new wetland of international importance: Isla del Coco National Park,  535 km off the coast from Puntarenas on the mainland, with a total surface of 99,623 hectares.  Details are available. [28/4/98]

More to follow. Watch this space. Feedback and suggestions to: the Ramsar Convention Bureau, Rue Mauverney 28, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland (tel +41 22 999 0170, fax +41 22 999 0169, e-mail ). Updated regularly by Dwight Peck, Ramsar.