INFOWETLAND - a new information service for the Western Hemisphere (08/06/06)

Good morning everyone:

Here's a message from Rosa Montañez, Executive Director of the Ramsar Regional Centre in the Western Hemisphere (CREHO), that will be of interest to some of you or your colleagues. Please respond directly to Rosa as indicated below if you would like to submit something for their newsletter. I will inform list members whenever their web site is launched.

With best wishes, Sandra Hails, Ramsar Secretariat
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INFOWETLAND
An informative service of the Ramsar Regional Center for Training and Research on Wetlands in the Western Hemisphere (CREHO)

Dear Colleagues and Friends,
We are launching our electronic newsletter INFOWETLAND in the coming weeks. The newsletter is an informative service of CREHO directed to organizations, networks and the general public interested in wetlands. The newsletter will be produced quarterly in English and Spanish.

The objectives of the newsletter are:
1. To disseminate up to date information about wetlands in the Americas
2. To inform about the achievements of the countries in the region in terms of declaration of Ramsar sites and specific actions towards the wise use and conservation of wetlands
3. To inform about CREHO’s activities, the Ramsar Secretariat and partner organizations working in the region
4. To provide a space for stakeholders to publish key information related to wetlands
5. To provide relevant information about workshops, symposiums and meetings related to wetlands in the region
The newsletter has the following sections:
1. Editorial
2. News Section. This section will have news from the countries member of the Ramsar Convention, news from CREHO, news from the Secretariat and partner organizations working in the region
3. Special Topic Section. Every number of INFOWETLAND will discuss a special topic selected by the editorial committee. The section could have an article informing about a new research or a chronicle about certain process implemented in wetlands.
4. Section of Events and Special Announcements

YOUR CONTRIBUTION
In order to make INFOWETLAND a useful and successful tool, we need your help!
At this point we will need your input for our first number to be launched at the end of June 2006. The deadline to send information is June 20, 2006.

You can send us information about activities, project results and processes in your countries related to Ramsar or to actions in wetlands.

Please bare in mind the following format considerations for the information you will send to us:
Format: Send your document via email as a word document or text in the email to desarrollo@creho.org
Words: Maximum 300 words per piece of information
Photographs: Please send photographs with a resolution higher than 72 dpi along with the name of the photographer and the copyright permission to be published in INFOWETLAND.

The newsletter will have minimum 4 pages and maximum 8 pages.

SPECIAL TOPIC:
For the Special Topic Section please send us a list of topics you would like to see comprehensively covered in the newsletter and if possible suggest names of persons that could be interested in writing about the topic you suggested.

CALENDAR:
INFOWETLAND will be published quarterly. In 2006 the newsletter will be published in June, September and December.
An evaluation of the newsletter will be conducted in December 2006. Based on the results we will decide the publication calendar for 2007.

CONTACT US:
Carolina Hoyos, Institutional Development Officer (desarrollo@creho.org) will be managing the production of the newsletter. Please send your news, topics, events and information to Carolina before June 20.

Subscribers to INFOWETLAND will receive the newsletter in PDF format (Low resolution file) and will be available on HTML format in our soon-to-be-launched website.

We hope to hear from you and make INFOWETLAND a successful informative tool for the countries, organizations and people working for the conservation and wise use of wetlands in the Americas.

Sincerely,
Rosa Montañez, Executive Director, Ramsar CREHO

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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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