Who was where, 2000?

A collection of travel news about Ramsar Bureau staff, in reverse chronological order, drawn from the Who's Where? feature of the Ramsar Bulletin Board. The record is not complete prior to mid-October 2000.

Nick Davidson, Deputy Secretary General, is on Bonn, Germany, attending the Conference of the Parties to the Convention to Combat Desertification and holding discussions on mutual cooperation with the secretariats of the Convention on Migratory Species and its African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement (AEWA). [18/12/00]

Delmar Blasco, Secretary General, is in Paris, France, to meet the new Director General of Nature Conservation and to participate in the annual meeting of the Steering Committee of the Danone/Evian project. [13/12/00]

Delmar Blasco, revered Secretary General, is in Bonn, Germany, 9 December, for a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.

Nick Davidson, similarly-revered Deputy Secretary General, is in Thessaloniki, Greece, 11-12 December, for a meeting of the MedWet Team.

Margarita Astrálaga, Regional Coordinator for the Americas, and Marco Flores, assistant to the Regional Coordinator, have left for Trinidad and Tobago for the Ramsar/SPAW Caribbean Training Workshop, 11-15 December, organized in the context of the Bureau's memo of cooperation with the UNEP Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region (Cartegena, Colombia, 1983) and its SPAW Protocol on 'Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife'.

Anada Tiéga, Regional Coordinator for Africa (just back visiting in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad to pursue the Global Environment Facility (GEF) project on the preparation of a management plan for the transboundary proposed Ramsar site for Lake Chad, 20 November to 3 December), has poked his head into the Bureau to pick up his new assignments and a fresh set of clothes and floppy disks, and is now on his way to Kampala, Uganda, for the second Ramsar training session on National Wetland Inventory, funded by the Swiss Ramsar Grant for Africa. [5/12/00]

Anada Tiéga, Regional Coordinator for Africa, is visiting in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad to pursue the Global Environment Facility (GEF) project on the preparation of a management plan for the transboundary proposed Ramsar site for Lake Chad, 20 November to 3 December.

Najam Khurshid, Regional Coordinator for Asia, is in India, 25 November to 3 December, attending a conference on 'Sustainable Development of Water Resources' in New Delhi and holding discussions with the Administrative Authority and local and regional NGOs. [28/11/00]

Margarita Astrálaga, Regional Coordinator for the Americas, is in Valdivia, Chile, beginning 19 November, to attend the Vth International Congress on Natural Resources Management and possibly to visit Ramsar sites in the area.

Tobias Salathé, Regional Coordinator for Europe, is in London for a meeting of the UK's National Ramsar Committee, and will be back late in the day on the 22nd of November.

Delmar Blasco, Secretary General, is in the south of France and north of Spain for the annual general meeting of EUROSITE, 16-17 November.

Nick Davidson, Deputy Secretary General, is in London, England, to represent Ramsar at the global launch of the report of the World Commission on Dams, 16 November. It is anticipated that the WCD report will have considerable significance for the Ramsar Convention, and the report, along with its large number of technical supporting reviews, will be reviewed by the Ramsar STRP's Expert Working Group on Dams as the basis for advising Contracting Parties at COP8 on issues relating to dams, wetlands, and the WCD guidance.

Anada Tiéga, Regional Coordinator for Africa, is in Wageningen, The Netherlands, 16-17 November, for a meeting of the steering committee of the Ramsar/AEWA project on flyway sites, financed by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF).

Delmar Blasco, Secretary General, is in Valencia, Spain, 15 November, for discussion with local authorities about preparations for the upcoming 8th Conference of the Parties.

Margarita Astrálaga, Regional Coordinator for the Americas, has gone to Bolivia, 15 November, and will be assisting at a binational meeting in Tihuanaco concerning the development of transboundary management status for the Lake Titicaca Ramsar sites in Bolivia and Peru.

Tobias Salathé, Regional Coordinator for Europe, is in Loipersdorf Burgenland, Austria, 15-17 November, to participate in the annual deliberations of the Austrian National Ramsar Committee.

Tobias Salathé, Regional Coordinator for Europe, is in Brussels, Belgium, 8-10 November 2000, to participate in a seminar, organized by the EC and WWF, on the role of wetlands in river basin management in view of implementation of the new EU Water Framework Directive.

Delmar Blasco, Secretary General, is in Paris, France, 6-7 November, to attend the Council Meeting of the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme.

Nick Davidson, Deputy Secretary General, and Anada Tiéga, Regional Coordinator for Africa, are in Evian, France, participating in the latest session in the Evian Encounters series, funded by the Danone Group -- this one for officials from English-speaking African countries. After two days, 6 and 7 November, in Evian, the participants will travel to the Camargue, France, for field demonstrations.

Tobias Salathé, Regional Coordinator for Europe, is in Brussels, Belgium, for a meeting on a vision for water and nature organized by the State of Flanders, 6 November 2000.

Nick Davidson, Deputy Secretary General, and Tobias Salathé, Regional Coordinator for Europe, are in Wageningen, The Netherlands, for Wetlands International's Specialist Group and Strategic Science meetings, 2-5 November. Topics include international waterbird census (helpful in terms of the Ramsar Criteria), as well as guidelines for threatened waterbirds, peatlands, wet grasslands, all contributing to the work of the Ramsar STRP. [3/11/00]

Nick Davidson, Deputy Secretary General, is in Cambridge, UK, for the workshop "Towards the Harmonization of National Reporting", 30-31 October, sponsored by the UNEP Division of Environmental Conventions and UNEP's World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC). He'll report on the meeting when he returns in a few days. [30/10/00]

Delmar Blasco, Secretary General, has gone to Tirana, Albania, to chair a meeting on a sustainable development plan for the new tri-national Prespa Park, 16-18 October. [16/10/00]

Najam Khurshid, Regional Coordinator for Asia, has flitted off to Okinawa, Japan, for the workshop on the Conservation of Migratory Waterbirds and Wetlands in the Asia-Pacific 2001-2006, 16-19 October. [17/10/00]

Najam Khurshid, Regional Coordinator for Asia, has probably left Damascus, Syria, after taking part in a workshop on "Effective management of protected areas and Biosphere Reserves for the conservation of biodiversity", which is supported by the Ramsar Bureau, UNESCO, UNEP, and CEDARE, and should now be in Teheran, Islamic Republic of Iran, to attend stakeholder and Steering Committee meetings on the GEF project currently under way there through the efforts of Ramsar, UNDP, and Iranian officials. [26/9/00]

Alain Lambert, Senior Adviser for Environment and Development Cooperation [The SAEDC!], should be in Teheran by now as well, and for the same purpose. No, wait!!!, now he's off to visits in Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia to discuss several wetland initiatives in Southeast Asia in general, and in particular a major Mekong River Delta management programme with Ramsar's partner and national authorities, in a visit organized by IUCN's regional office in Asia.[29/9/00]

Tobias Salathé, Regional Coordinator for Europe is in Odessa, Ukraine, to attend two workshops: 1) on the "Conservation, restoration and wise use of wetlands and wetland resources along the Black Sea coast" organized by Wetlands International (with financial support from the Netherlands), including delegations from eight Black Sea range states and a number of international organizations; 2) on "Water issues and natural resources management", the final workshop of the Ramsar-Danone/Evian-MedWet4 project on "technical twinnings between Ramsar Sites in closed seas deltas within the MedWet-Eurosite framework" (with delegations from 10 Mediterranean, Black and Caspian Seas deltas), followed by a visit of coastal wetlands between Odessa and the Ukrainian part of the Danube delta. [27/9/00]

The Secretary General's plans for early September 2000:Delmar Blasco will be attending the 4th Ministerial Conference on Environment and Development in Asia and the Pacific to be held in Kitakyushu, Japan, from 31 August - 5 September. The Environment Congress for Asia and the Pacific (ECO ASIA), organized annually by the Environment Agency of Japan, will be held in conjunction with the Conference on 3 September.

From Japan the SG will fly to New York to speak at the State of the World Forum, on 6 September, at a session on "The World’s Fresh Water and Wetlands in the 21st Century". The Forum is being held at the New York Hilton and Towers, co-chaired by such individuals as Mikhail Gorbachev, Ruud Lubbers, Desmond Tutu, Jane Goodall, H.E. Oscar Arias, Ted Turner, Elie Wiesel and others, bringing together some of the world’s top leadership, including many current and former heads of state, Nobel Peace Prize laureates, political and business leaders, scientists and academicians, administrators of non-governmental organizations, and so forth. While in New York, the SG will meet with UN officials to discuss Ramsar insertion in the Rio+10 process and Ramsar's contribution to the implementation of the Barbados Plan of Action for Small Island Developing States.[24/8/00]

Monsieur Nick Davidson, Deputy Secretary General, steadfastly attended by the Bureau's Tobias Salathe and Dwight Peck, is participating in the soi-disant Millennium Wetland Event in Quebec, Canada, 6-12 August 2000. The Secretary General is on a very welcome vacation in Spain, his first serious time off in the past 5 years; everyone else is fluttering all about the Bureau, bouncing on the edges of their chairs waiting for Europe's August holiday migration to get seriously under way. [8/8/00]

Nick Davidson, Deputy Secretary General, is in Gdansk, Poland, 2-6 May, to participate in the final session of the Coastal - Global Oceanographic Observing System (C-GOOS), part of a large UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission activity over the past four years. [1/5/00]

Anada Tiéga, Regional Coordinator for Africa, is in Accra, Ghana, to participate in the 5th Regional Training Course, 2-5 May, on developing National Wetlands Policies, organized by Wetlands International in collaboration with Ghana Wildlife Society and the Ghana Wildlife Department. Other participants include Mike Smart (former Ramsar DSG) on behalf of the Wetland Waterfowl Trust, Abdoulaye Ndiaye and STRP-member Aboubacar Awaïss of Wetlands International, and staff from the Ministries of 19 West and Central African countries. [1/5/00]

Delmar Blasco, Secretary General, Nick Davidson, Deputy Secretary General, Anada Tiega and Tobias Salathé, Regional Coordinators, and Mireille Katz, Executive Assistant, have all gone off to the Isle of Djerba in Tunisia for the 3rd meeting of the MedWet Committee (MedWet/Com), which will last most of next week. [1/4/00]

Margarita Astrálaga, Regional Coordinator for the Americas, is in Coveñas, Colombia, 3 to 8 April, to participate in that country's first National Wetland Training Course. [3/4/00]

Delmar Blasco, Secretary General, is in Lelystad, the Netherlands, for a board meeting of the International Course on Wetland Management, 6 March.

Anada Tiéga, Regional Coordinator for Africa, is on a joint mission, 28 February to 6 March, with Ramsar, IUCN, Eurosite, and the World Heritage Centre, to assist the Government of Tunisia in identifying relevant indicators for a monitoring system on Lake Ichkeul, a Ramsar and Montreux Record site which also appears on the World Heritage list of endangered properties.

SBSTTA5: Dr Bill Phillips and Dr Nick Davidson, our Deputy Secretaries General passing in the night, or rather collaborating in Montreal, are at the CBD's SBSTTA meeting, Dr Jorge Jiménez, Chair of Ramsar's Scientific and Technical Review Panel. Results will follow soon. [30/1/00]

Rebecca D'Cruz, Regional Coordinator for Asia, is in Cambodia, 10-19 December 1999, in order to follow up on her recent Lao/China mission and make preparations for the forthcoming Evian mission to that country. (15/12/99)