"Wetlands: water, life, and culture" 8th Meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties to the Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar, Iran, 1971) Valencia, Spain, 18-26 November 2002

Day Three of the Ramsar COP

Day 3, 20 November, was devoted to regional meetings in the morning, which allow the Parties with like geographical problems and perspectives to share their own experiences in implementing the Convention, and, in the afternoon, to the first of the five Technical Sessions: "Major challenges and emerging opportunities for wetlands, water and sustainability". Following five presentations by invited experts, covering the texts and guidance in Draft Resolutions, the plenary broke into four regional groupings to discuss the drafts further, eventually to conflate their regional perspectives into common amendments to the draft texts in the coming days.

In addition, there was the usual rich array of side events, almost frustratingly too many for the participants to choose among, and the exhibit hall continued to attract large numbers of astonished gawkers.

In the corridors

Some members of the Earth Negotiations Bulletin team

Technical Session I

Delegates at play

The enormous hall of exhibits: here are a few examples

The elegant Ramsar exhibit

BirdLife and BirdLife Spain

Wetlands International

The private sector: BP

And then eating all the dates at the Algerian side event -- more here.