World Wetlands Day 2001: Australia

Dear Valerie, I have received information about WWD 2001 with the Ramsar poster - thank you very much. I really appreciated the information we received last year and have used it to good effect.

I would be delighted if Bicentennial Park could have a set of the Ramsar Exhibit posters. Bicentennial Park is a wetland right in the middle of Homebush Bay (we are neighbours of the Olympic site) and we have received a large number of local and international visitors recently. The area is still very much in the international spotlight and visitors are always amazed that this wetland habitat is right in the midst of this busy area. Our school year starts just at WWD and as we have a very successful Field Studies Centre here, large numbers of school children visit the site. We also have many visitors coming here as part of their "Olympic experience". Our Visitor Centre is part of a network of Centres in Australia.

My particular interest is birds and I have a close contact with several of the Sydney Bird Clubs who often visit the Park. We have over 120 different species of birds here, including migratory waders.

The Ramsar Posters would be invaluable in promoting the work we do here at Bicentennial Park, particularly in the management of the wetlands which have been reclaimed from rubbish and pollution affected wasteland. For WWD 2001 our particular project will be to involve members of the community as well as all of our staff in the removal of salvinia from one of our freshwater lakes. The salvinia coverage was extensive after a few weeks of very warm weather. The Bicentennial Park Trust engaged a harvester for mechanical removal of the weed and now we need to tackle the rest with our combined man-power. We received some good media coverage when the harvester was in and we hope to have more media here for WWD.

I would also really appreciate it if you could also send a few WWD posters, the brochures and some stickers.

Thank you in anticipation and keep up your excellent work.

Judy Harrington
Volunteer Program Coordinator
Bicentennial Park
PO Box 170 Concord West NSW 2138 Australia

jharrington@bicentpkhbay.nsw.gov.au