News from the CEPA e-mail list

A new wetland centre for Austria - and a little more on the MA (12/05/06)

Good morning everyone:

Two items of news: a new wetland centre launched in Austria and a little more on the MA.

1. The new "UnderWaterWorld" Ramsar Centre in Schrems Nature Park in the north of Austria opened its doors on 28 April 2006. A full report of the opening is available here http://www.ramsar.org/wn/w.n.austria_schrems_centre.htm and I have ‘lifted’ a few paragraphs below to give you the brief story.

At the opening ceremony with nearly 400 people attending, the deputy state leader of Niederösterreich (one of Austria's nine federal states), Ernest Gabmann, underlined the fact that the Ramsar Centre is planned to attract at least 30,000 paying visitors a year, as it is forming part of the many tourist attractions available for recreation in his very healthy region. Indeed, if you wish to, you can apparently swim from the "Moorbad" (bog pool) in the natural lake draining the nearby peat bog (part of Ramsar Site N° 1013) upstream directly to the entry of the breathtaking experience of the UnderWaterWorld.

The Ramsar Centre is the brainchild of Michaela Bodner, now its director. Over the years, she managed to gather around her project all those specialists and supporters needed to make her vision a reality. WWF Austria and the urban municipality of Schrems cooperated to make the UnderWaterWorld part of an international network.

As Michaela sums it up: "We aimed to showcase a diversity of different wetland aspects, sufficiently spectacular in order not to bore the general public, but at the same time scientifically correct, not to upset the specialists and those already intimate with the delicacies of nature conservation." A specific part of the exhibit focuses on the Ramsar Convention and the network of Ramsar Sites in Austria, Europe and the world.

Congratulations to Michaela, WWF Austria, the Urban Municipality of Schrems.

The centre is already a member of the Wetland Link International (WLI) network of centres, a network closely linked to Ramsar’s CEPA Programme (read more about this here http://www.ramsar.org/outreach_wetlandcentres.htm). As reported in a previous elist message, WLI has recently produced a manual Developing a Wetland Centre: 1. Public centres and CEPA. I am happy to report that this is now available for download in Chinese, French, Portuguese, and Spanish as well as English from the WLI Web site here http://www.wli.org.uk/.

2. Following my email to the list about the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment on Wednesday, Michèle Sato from the Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso, Brazil, replied to me with a very useful comment that I thought worth mentioning to list members. Michèle noted that on the MA web site they have produced some other communication materials about their findings that are very useful for teachers, researchers and other communicators. If you look under their resources section (perhaps start here http://www.millenniumassessment.org//en/Presentations.aspx) you will find access to powerpoints, brochures, tables and figures, maps and data, that help make it much easier for communicators to fully understand the scope of the MA’s work and to make use of the 3,000 pages of text that make up the reports. The Maps and Data section is not yet up and running but the rest is already available. Worth a look.

With best wishes, 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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