Plans, targets and indicators for culture

30/09/2015

Measuring the status of wetlands can involve cultural factors as much as ecological or hydrological ones.  Ramsar’s definition of “wetland ecological character” includes the cultural dimension, and adopted guidance expands on the types of values involved.  The Ramsar Information Sheet provides for these values to be recorded for Ramsar sites.

This information becomes an important part of assessing the achievement of policy objectives.  Following the adoption at COP12 of the 4th Ramsar Strategic Plan (2016-2024), work is now underway to elaborate indicator processes for each of the 19 targets in the Plan.  Cultural factors could be relevant to several of these, for example target 5 on integrated management, target 8 on national inventories, target 11 on ecosystem services and target 18 on international cooperation.

The most obvious link is with target 10, which is concerned with respecting and integrating traditional knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous peoples and local communities.  Although no operational indicator has yet been adopted by Ramsar for this, the Strategic Plan has been developed in close alignment with the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity which has an analogous target, and for which pilot studies towards indicators of “vitality of traditional environmental knowledge” and “trends in linguistic diversity” have been undertaken.  Meanwhile the Mediterranean Wetland Observatory has been studying options for indicators of wetland ecosystem services relating to education and recreation.

It is to be hoped that efforts such as these will help us measure more concretely the extent to which objectives for wetlands & culture are being achieved.  This should support implementation of Ramsar’s effectiveness indicators (Resolution IX.1) and management effectiveness assessment framework (Resolution XII.15) as well as the Strategic Plan.  It should also enrich the Convention’s contribution to other assessments such as the World Water Assessment Report, the Global Biodiversity Outlook and monitoring of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.