The Ramsar Bulletin Board, 2 June 2001

2 June 2001

Headline story. Wetlands International and The Netherlands collaborate on innovative programme for wetlands. To explore a new way of working with its development assistance partners, the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through its Directoraat-Generaal Internationale Samenwerking (DGIS), has concluded an agreement with Wetlands International over cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands. DGIS is providing Euro 2.2 million (US$ 2 million) to Wetlands International for an initial period from 1 April 2001 to 30 June 2002 inclusive, for delivery of a Programme on Conservation and Wise Use of Wetlands. Beneficiaries of the fund will include DGIS target countries and neighbouring countries sharing a common resource, such as water catchments or fisheries. The programme also gives direct support to eligible International Conventions and Agreements including: Ramsar / Wetlands International Joint Work Plan, Ramsar / CBD Joint Work Plan, CBD/Ramsar River Basin Initiative, Ramsar Training and Advisory Service, World Commission on Dams Report and follow up actions, Work Plans with other relevant conventions (e.g. under preparation, notably CMS – the Bonn Convention on migratory species and their habitats). Here're some more details on this very welcome programme. [02/06/01]

Headline story. Ramsar opening for Intern for Asia. The Ramsar Bureau welcomes applications for the position of Intern for the Asian Region / Assistant to the Regional Coordinator for Asia, a one-year posting (possibly extendable to 18 months) to begin 5 November 2001. With an age limit for applicants of 30 years old, the post offers an opportunity for young graduates to become acquainted with the workings of an intergovernmental treaty dealing with the conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Candidates for this internship should be nationals of countries in Asia and have lived most of their lives in the region. Full ability to work in English is required for this post, while a practical knowledge of French would be an asset -- the ability to communicate in at least one Asian language would also be of value. Candidates should view the General Terms of Reference for Ramsar internships (also available from the Bureau), which includes conditions of service and salary structure, and send a curriculum vitae with a covering letter, both in English, with two letters of reference, to the Bureau’s Administration Coordinator, Ms Annette Keller, keller@ramsar.org . The deadline for applications is 30 June 2001. [01/06/01]

Headline story. WWF-Auen-Institut publishes atlas of the Oder. The Floodplains Institute of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF-Auen-Institut) in Rastatt (a small German town in the floodplain of the Upper Rhine) has published a stunning, A3-sized, 3 kg-heavy atlas of the entire Oder/Odra floodplain from the Czech Republic downstream through Poland and Germany to the Baltic Sea. Background and description are available here. [01/06/01]

Headline story. Invitation to wetlands public awareness list-serve. The Ramsar Convention Bureau is hosting a new e-mail discussion group for the public dedicated to wetland- and Ramsar-related “Communications, Education, and Public Awareness” (CEPA) techniques and activities. Part of a wider Internet-based outreach programme called for by the 7th meeting of the Conference of the Parties, the CEPA list is a companion to the mini-Web site at http://ramsar.org/outreach_index.htm and is offered as separate groups for English, French, and Spanish speakers. The purpose of the CEPA List is “to provide a mechanism for the exchange of news, views, announcements, information and advice on CEPA-related issues between any of the List's subscribers and all the others”. Appropriate subjects for posting on the CEPA List include anything which might be of interest to citizens, schoolteachers, NGOs, Ramsar CEPA Focal Points, Ramsar Administrative Authorities as well as other government personnel who are interested in the development and evolution of communication, education and public awareness as a tool for the conservation and wise use of wetlands in general, and more specifically, for implementing the Convention on Wetlands.

Interested readers can join the Ramsar CEPA list by sending a blank e-mail message to ramsar-cepa-eng-join@indaba.iucn.org, or to ramsar-cepa-esp-join@indaba.iucn.org for the Spanish and ramsar-cepa-franc-join@indaba.iucn.org for the French versions. [30/05/01]

Who's where?

 Anada Tiéga, Regional Coordinator for Africa, is in Botswana, in Maun and at the Okavango Delta for a donors meeting on implementation of the Okavango Management Plan. More detail about objectives and participants are available here. [28/05/01]

New on the Site: Historians, to your marks! DOC. C.4.18, the review of National Reports and review of implementation of the Convention, prepared by Mike Smart for the 4th meeting of the Conference of the Parties in Montreux, 1990, is now available.  [25/05/01]

MedWet/Com4 meets in Sesimbra. The 4^th meeting of the Committee of the Mediterranean Wetland Initiative (MedWet) has just taken place in Sesimbra, Portugal, 21-23 May 2001. The meeting, attended by over 60 members of the Committee and observers from throughout the Mediterranean Basin, was splendidly organised and hosted by the Instituto da Conservaçâo da Natureza (ICN), Portugal, at the Hotel do Mar, Sesmibra, a fishing village south of Lisbon. Formal reports will appear here later, but here is a preliminary report of the themes discussed in plenary, MedWet Inventory workshop, and the technical session on Mediterranean salinas. [28/05/01]

River Basin Initiative 'design workshop' advances the cause. The RBI is a joint Ramsar-CBD initiative under the Joint Work Plan and is the major tangible demonstration of how such plans can and should be operationalised. The Design Workshop, held in Wageningen, 14-16 May, involved both international partner organizations (including Ramsar IOPs and other NGOs, global biodiversity and water resource management organizations, and multilateral and bilateral donors) and, through Netherlands Government resourcing to Wetlands International, a number of country representatives. The workshop reviewed and advanced the present design of the Initiative, particularly in relation to the preparation of a project submission to UNDP-GEF (part funding for the workshop came through a PDF-A grant from UNDP to develop the work). Dr Nick Davidson, Ramsar's representative to the meeting, says that "the partnership approach of the Initiative is already yielding significant opportunities for working together to better mainstream wetlands and biodiversity issues into water resource management, to provide a 'clearing-house' of information exchange on wetlands, biodiversity and river basin management, and develop analyses and reporting to contribute to better information and understanding of these issues as guidance for Ramsar Parties, CBD through its inland waters programme of work, other environmental conventions and partner organizations." [18/05/01]

 Note for the record. Canada extends Mer Bleue site. The Government of Canada has extended the "Mer Bleue Conservation Area" Ramsar site in Ontario province, first designated in 1995, from 3,100 to 3,343 hectares. [17/05/01]

Pakistan designates eight new Ramsar sites. The Ramsar Bureau is delighted to announce the Government of Pakistan’s designation of eight new Wetlands of International Importance, with a total of 222,246 hectares, bringing that Party’s total number of Ramsar sites to 16. The new sites include an extensive mangrove forest extending along Gawater Bay on the Arabian Sea to the Iranian border, and contiguous with Iran’s Govater Bay and Hur-e-Bahu Ramsar site; an uninhabited island off the coast (left), as well as other sandy beach coastal sites, which are important for endangered Olive Ridley and Green turtles; a 170-km stretch of the Indus River that is vital for the survival of the once-common Indus dolphin; and much more. IUCN-Pakistan and WWF-Pakistan have both been very active, not only in biodiversity studies and management planning for these areas, but also in technical preparations for these Ramsar designations. View brief descriptions, with photos and some very interesting details, right here. [14/05/01]

Water and Wetland Index launched. For those who may have missed it, on 19 April WWF's European Freshwater Programme launched its Water and Wetland Index, a pan-European initiative assessing the status, pressures and management of key freshwater ecosystems (rivers, lakes, wetlands) as well as national policy action on freshwater issues. During the first phase 16 European European countries have been assessed. Here is a reprint of the launch press release, and the Index's site can be visited at http://www.panda.org/europe/freshwater/wwi/phase1/overview.html

News from the 'Swiss Grant for Africa'. It's a little known secret that, since the establishment of the Ramsar secretariat in Switzerland in 1988/9, the Federal Government of Switzerland has been making available to the Bureau a voluntary contribution of more than 100,000 Swiss francs per year, in addition to its regular contribution to the Convention's core budget, earmarked to support the implementation of the Convention in Africa. Summary annual reports on the use of these funds seem regularly to have been made to the Swiss Government, but for some reason they have never been brought before the public -- which is a pity, because taken together they contain a wealth of information about the progress of wetland conservation and wise use in that continent. In an effort to remedy this oversight, the Bureau has established an index page for Swiss Grant annual reports and begun populating it, so far with reports on funded projects in 1998 and 1999. Watch for more annual reports and occasional news items into the bargain. [03/05/01]

Staff notes. Cultural heritage of wetlands staff. Catalan culinary culture gained new respect and, indeed, enthusiastic support from Bureau staff on 28 April 2001, as Montse Riera prepared an enormous spread at Paulette Kennedy's house in Signy, Switzerland, and the secretariat personnel and their collaborators kept eating until finally they had to be driven off with quirts. Here are some photos: see how many people you can name (no points for the dog). [02/05/01]

Available now. Agenda papers and pre-meeting documentation for the 4th European regional meeting on the Ramsar Convention. Beginning now, and progressing in the coming months. [01/05/01]

News from the SGF. Russia reports on Kamchatka project. The Ramsar Small Grants Fund project "Development of a monitoring programme and draft management plans for the Ramsar sites located on the Kamchatka Peninsula" (1998) has been successfully accomplished, providing management plans and ensuring improved protection of four Ramsar sites in Russia. The management plans have been elaborated according to the Ramsar guidelines for management planning and contain the information about the state of biological diversity and nature resource users for Ramsar sites Parapolsky Dol, Moroshechnaya River, Utkholok Cape and Karaginsky Island. An inventory of the wetlands and evaluation of natural resources was carried out, and an economic valuation of the natural values of the area provide the following figures (in USD) - the estimated cost of vertebrate animals alone in Parapolsky Dol Ramsar site is 21.0 million, Moroshechnaya River - 37.5, Utkholok Cape is 27.5 million USD and estimate reaches 60 million USD in the Karaginsky Island Ramsar site. The official protection status of the sites was enhanced when documents regulating economic activity in the sites and their protection, as well as determining the site boundaries and area, were prepared and approved by the Administration of the Koryak Autonomous Area as a result of the project. The project was supervised by Prof. Vitaly G. Krivenko of the Research Institute for Nature Conservation (a Ramsar Award winner in 1999) and implemented by the Centre of International Projects of the State Committee on Ecology of Russia and the Centre of Study of Eurasian Migratory Animals. See a bit more here. (reported by Inga Racinska, Ramsar). [02/05/01]

Living Water info pack available. The WWF’s Living Waters Campaign is making available a superb info pack as a "WWF response to the global freshwater crisis". Eminently useful for anglophone educators and public awareness officers everywhere, the pack begins with a main brochure that outlines the essential need for fresh water and the scope of the impending crisis in freshwater availability ("By the year 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population could experience water shortages"!) and then focuses on the river basin (or catchment) approach to integrated freshwater management. Several ways forward are alluded to briefly, including the Ramsar Convention’s contribution to conservation and wise use at international level. Also included in the pack are richly informative pamphlets on five key river basins: ‘The River Niger, river of rivers’; ‘The Vistula River, an aging queen’; ‘The Orinoco River, a South American jewel’; ‘The Yangtze River, taming the dragon’; and ‘The Mekong River, an unknown and threatened kingdom’, all of them including maps, stats, thumbnail photos, and literary quotations, and explanatory text. No wetlands educator should be caught without this new info pack, which can be sought free of charge from Amalia Romeo of WWF International in Gland, Switzerland, aromeo@wwfint.org. See a few photos here. [30/04/01]

Added value feature. M. Tiéga sinks in Niger. Devoted members of the Anada Fan Club will be delighted to learn that, thanks to Mr Denis Landenbergue of WWF's Living Waters Campaign, the Bureau is able to supply poignant photos of the Regional Coordinator for Africa steeling himself in a creaky boat [left] for sinking deep into a proposed Ramsar site in Niger, and then celebrating his narrow escape afterwards. Prepare yourself. [26/04/01]

Wetlands International's review for 2000 now available. In just 16 colorful pages, Wetlands International's International Coordination Unit has summarized the present state of play throughout the organization, with its accomplishments for the past year. The new pamphlet summarizes global programmes, including work with Ramsar, CMS, and CBD, then proceeds to descriptions of progress in Europe (particularly with the Russia and Black Sea Programmes, the Central European and Upper Tisza Projects, and the GEF Lower Volga Management Project), in Africa, in Asia (and in particular the programmes based in China, Indonesia, the Lower Mekong Basin, Malaysia, and South Asia), in Oceania, and in the Americas. The work of the 21 Specialist Groups is also described, and lists of member countries and sponsoring organizations are included. This extremely useful publication is available free of charge from icu@wetlands.agro.nl. [30/04/01]

Update on the Participatory Management Clearinghouse. The Participatory Management Networking Service, a joint service of IUCN, the Ramsar Bureau, and WWF, managed by the IUCN Social Policy Group, has changed its name to the Participatory Management Clearinghouse, and has made a great deal of progress in assembling abstracts and references for published materials sorted into the categories: Collaborative Management, Indigenous Peoples Management, and Community-based Management, cross-referenced by regional emphases and cross-cutting themes. The Internet-based resource project was endorsed by Ramsar Standing Committee Decision SC25-8 and continues to make progress. View the latest state of things at http://iucn.org/themes/pmns/. [27/04/01]

News from the UK: new Ramsar policy statement for Wales. Following on from the UK Government's policy statement on Ramsar sites in England, issued on 14 November 2000 (reprinted here), Ms Sue Essex, Minister for the Environment, took the occasion of World Wetlands Day 2001 to issue the National Assembly for Wales' policy statement for Ramsar sites in Wales. Like its precursor, the statement lays out the present policy and legal situation of Ramsar sites and their relation to Natura 2000 sites and Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), and it describes the government's expectations in terms of management and development decision-making at all levels concerning Ramsar wetlands, including multi-sectoral consultation. In general, the policy accords Ramsar sites the same protections found in the EC Birds and Habitats Directives; amongst other interesting features, the policy supplies guidance on such key Ramsar issues as Article 2.5 on "urgent national interest" and Article 4.2 on compensation. The policy statement for Wales has been reprinted here, with permission, in its English and Welsh versions. [25/04/01]

European Space Agency invites tenders for studies on environmental treaties. The European Space Agency has just published an invitation to tender for studies investigating the future contribution from Earth Observation to support the implementation of international environmental treaties. The studies are collectively called TESEO (Treaty Enforcement Services using Earth Observation). At least four projects will be started, each with a budget of maximum 250,000 Euros and duration of maximum 15 months. Each project will correspond to a theme related to an international environmental convention. At least the four following themes and corresponding conventions will be covered: Wetlands - Ramsar Convention; Carbon - Kyoto protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climatic Change; Desertification - UN Convention to Combat Desertification; Marine Pollution - MARPOL 73/78. Read further specifications here, and get your bids in. [24/04/01]

Ramsar Award winner 1999 takes Goldman Environmental Prize for 2001. Dr Myrsini Malakou, who received one of the Ramsar Wetland Conservation Awards in San José in 1999 on behalf of the Society for the Protection of Prespa, has won one of the Goldman Environmental Prizes for 2001. The announcement notes that she and Giorgios Catsadorakis "have used their research to create and advise community-based programs to restore Greece’s Prespa wetlands, one of Europe’s most biologically diverse regions. Thanks to the advocacy and leadership of Catsadorakis and Malakou, last year Albania, Macedonia and Greece signed an unprecedented agreement to create the first transboundary park in the Balkans, a region better known for conflict than cooperation". The announcements of the six Goldman Prizes for 2001 are at www.goldmanprize.org. (Our report of the creation of the transboundary Prespa Park on World Wetlands Day 2000 is available here.) [24/04/01]

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