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Contrasting ways to raise awareness - a river festival and storm drain stencils (13/09/06)

Greetings everyone:

Here are two innovative ideas for raising awareness of wetland issues. The first is the Riverfestival, organised in Brisbane, Australia this month and the second, a simple idea to encourage citizens to think carefully about their contribution to water pollution.

1. Riverfestival 2006

Now in its ninth year, the Australian Riverfestival is an annual festival to celebrate the Brisbane River from its Bunya Mountains source to the river mouth at Moreton Bay where it joins the Pacific Ocean. Organised by Brisbane City Council, the Queensland Government and Channel Nine, its aim is to raise awareness of local and global environmental concerns about water usage, showcasing achievements and highlighting the environmental challenges that remain. Key activities include:

An International Riversymposium bringing together the world’s river management community to share ideas, and best practice with speakers from over 40 countries.

The International Riverprize rewarding the best global examples of river rehabilitation and management. An exploration of the length of the Brisbane River by 30 high school students who participate over 15 days in the Bunya to Bay environmental adventure. On completion of the physical and mental challenge these students become Riverfestival’s first River Ambassadors and the future stewards of the Brisbane River.

The Liquid Lens short film competition.

And this is just a taste of what’s going on – there’s an imaginative approach to presenting music and arts, and of course a there’s a Riverfeast to keep people fed and watered!

Visit their web site here http://www.riverfestival.com.au/welcome/.

2. Storm drain stencils

A new website launched by Earthwater features an innovative idea for raising community awareness about the pollution from runoff in local storm drains. Earthwater has produced a range of stencil designs for storm drains to alert local communities to the water quality problems caused by the runoff reaching the drains, and to encourage a change in their behaviour. Some easy-to-follow steps for organisers are also provided to prepare for their stencil launch day.

Pollution from runoff in local storm drains accounts for at least 60% of water quality problems in some countries and at least some of this is due to the thoughtless dumping of oil, antifreeze, lawn & garden chemicals, pet waste, litter etc. Many people mistakenly assume that storm drains lead to treatment facilities but, in reality, storm drains usually empty untreated into wetlands or into groundwater supplies, causing water-quality problems. Stenciling next to storm drains alerts others to the fate of runoff water and the pollution carried with it from lawns and streets, and organisers can then provide further information on what can be done to avoid this kind of pollution.

The stencils can be customized to include text such as the name of the watershed, graphics depicting local fish and waterbird species etc., in a variety of languages. And the sale of the stencils actually supports conservation in another way – all the proceeds from their sale goes to support the Adopt-A-Watershed programme (http://www.adopt-a-watershed.org)

Further information on the stencils is available here http://www.earthwater.org.

Best regards, 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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