The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands

River Basin Initiative: Selection of Case Studies for Ramsar Guidelines

Selection of South East Asian Case Studies on Integrating Wetlands, Biodiversity and River Basin Management

As a contribution to the Ramsar-CBD River Basin Initiative (RBI), the Global Environment Centre (GEC) is preparing a guideline for South East Asian countries on “Integrating Wetlands, Biodiversity and River Basin Management”. This will build on the Ramsar Handbook 4 on “Integrating wetland conservation and wise use into river basin management”. It will be produced in English and four Asian languages: Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian and Malay. The project is funded by the ASEAN Regional Centre for Biodiversity Conservation (ARCBC). To make the guidelines more relevant to the region, South East Asian case studies will be included in the adapted version.

In January 2003, a workshop was held in Kuala Lumpur to get inputs and comments on the Ramsar Guidelines Translation Project from different countries in the region. Participants from the workshop suggested that each country be consulted for the selection of most appropriate case studies, as each country will have their own priorities.

This project aims to produce a guideline with relevant local case studies that will be useful to the region. Hence, your full support and cooperation is very much appreciated.

How can you help?

We need your inputs in the selection of case studies. From the Case Study Menu, select the case studies which you feel will be useful to your country (or to the region) and to be included in the Guideline. Then, rank the case studies according to their priority and level of usefulness in order of priority with “1” as the highest and “5” as the lowest.

The case studies in the Menu have been listed according to country and the issues pertaining to each site have been highlighted according to the 5 main issues below:

• Community participation and public awareness
• Institutional frameworks
• Assessment and enhancement of the role of wetlands in water management
• Minimising the impacts of land use and development projects on wetlands and their biodiversity
• Maintenance of natural water regimes to maintain wetlands and restoration
• International cooperation

If you know of any other case studies which you think will be useful to your country or region, please add them to the list under “Other suggestions”. If possible, indicate the issues which will be covered in the case study. We would appreciate it if you can also provide us with the contact details of the person whom we can contact about these case studies.

Please send us your selection of case studies as soon as possible or by 21 March 2003 to:

Ms Chew Oi May
Global Environment Centre
Email: oimay@genet.po.my

Thank you for your support and cooperation.

Kindly pass this on to your colleagues who may be interested to contribute.

Best Regards,

Oi May Chew
Programme Officer
Global Environment Centre
7A, Jalan 19/29, 46300 Petaling Jaya
Selangor D.E., MALAYSIA
Tel: +603-7957 2007
Fax: +603-7957 7003
Email: oimay@genet.po.my
Website: www.riverbasin.org

For further information about the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, please contact the Ramsar Convention Bureau, Rue Mauverney 28, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland (tel +41 22 999 0170, fax +41 22 999 0169, e-mail ramsar@ramsar.org). Posted 23 February 2003, Dwight Peck, Ramsar.