The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands

35th Meeting of the Ramsar Standing Committee

CONVENTION ON WETLANDS (Ramsar, Iran, 1971) 35th Meeting of the Standing Committee Gland, Switzerland, 14-16 February 2007

Agenda item 14

DOC. SC35-12

Note from the Ramsar Secretariat. The paper below has been prepared for Standing Committee consideration by Dave Pritchard (RSPB/BirdLife International), as agreed by the Standing Committee at its 34th meeting. This major analysis has been undertaken as part of Mr. Pritchard's periods of secondment in the Secretariat during 2006, with the generous agreement and support of the RSPB (UK).

Background, and agreement on the scope of work

1. Resolution IX.17 on Review of the decisions of the Conference of the Contracting Parties asked (para 5) for "a review of the decisions taken since the first Conference of the Parties with a view to identifying specific areas of conflicting advice or policy, redundancy, and differing interpretation or conflict".

2. In discussing this issue, the Standing Committee at its 34th meeting, on 10-13 April 2006, decided as follows:

Decision SC34-10: The Standing Committee welcomed the offer of RSPB to provide time for David Pritchard to undertake, with Secretariat help, an analysis of all Ramsar COP decisions with a view to identifying conflicting advice or policy, redundancies, and superseded mandates, reporting these to the STRP for evaluation, perhaps to IUCN's Environmental Law Centre for legal review, and to the SC for proposal to COP10. This decision is conditional upon the SC's out-of-session agreement on Terms of Reference and a time line for the completion of this task.

3. The proposed Terms of Reference and timeline were circulated to Standing Committee members on 15 August 2006, together with a background document by Mr Pritchard entitled Implementation of Res IX.17 (Review of the decisions of the Conference of Parties) - the emerging approach which discussed aspects of the way forward. Responses were received from a small number of Committee members which offered constructive comments, and there was no disagreement with the Terms of Reference and timeline, which are therefore reproduced as Annex 1 to the present document.

Links to work of the Ramsar Scientific & Technical Review Panel

4. In the current cycle, the work programme of the STRP (see Resolution IX.2) includes a number of items concerning reviews of previous/extant guidance and related technical decision material. In taking forward the present work deriving from Resolution IX.17, care will be taken to make specific linkages with those STRP tasks that may cover related ground. Annex 2 to the present paper identifies the tasks concerned.

Experience of other conventions

5. As part of the work being undertaken, some regard has been had to the approach and experience of other conventions. A useful meeting was held in June 2006 with the responsible staff member in the CITES Secretariat, where consolidation and retiral of decisions is a routine process. CITES' approach in the main is staff-led and quite pragmatic, rather than being heavily legalistic or politicised. The Convention on Biological Diversity, on the other hand, has turned away from consolidation, and after some cycles of retirals, seems uncertain about its way forward on those, too.

6. This research has been useful also for preparing (at a later stage) to consider best approaches to future decision-making in Ramsar (see "Lessons and other thoughts for future Ramsar decision-making" below).

Systematic analysis of Ramsar's 253 COP Decisions to date

7. The working document constructed as the primary tool for the analysis is presented as Annex 3 to the present paper. To compile this, every paragraph of every Ramsar Decision since COP1 (Resolutions and Recommendations, including their appended guidelines and other annexes) has been compared with all subsequent elements in other Decisions, and an opinion then recorded (with reasoning) as to whether the individual element concerned, or the entire section, or the entire decision, could be subject to one of the following actions:

• retiral, where either (a) the same point is made in a later decision, or (b) the element relates to something time-expired; or
• consolidation, where now two or more linked decisions exist, with all or (especially) part/s of their content still valid, where the issue concerned would be more coherently comprehended if the valid parts were edited together (and accompanying redundant elements could be retired); or
• retention, as still valid and not a particular candidate for consolidation.

8. In some cases, two or more decisions on the same topic appear to create a conflict - where this is the case it is identified, and a decision will need to be taken in some appropriate way as to which view should prevail.

9. In addition, in some cases the best course of action may depend on a qualified opinion as to the legal implications of making any change, and in such cases the need for possible legal advice is flagged.

Results of first analysis

10. Across the several hundred decision sub-elements (usually = paragraphs) that have been reviewed, possibilities for retiral have been noted in 158 instances, for consolidation in 75 instances, for conflict in 9 instances and for legal advice in 11 instances (though note that the total number of "instances" of consolidation, conflict or legal advice relate to a smaller total number of issues, i.e., some issues appear in more than one decision). Retention is the default option for any other decision-elements not assigned to one of these categories.

11. Some of the findings of the work so far are only provisional at this stage and/or require more time for more in-depth checking.

12. The description of categories of situation in paras 6-8 is a huge oversimplification. In practice many instances are not as clear-cut as this. Comparison of decisions is complicated by things that appear alike not necessarily being so - for example, different decisions may purport to address the same issue, but one (e.g., the earlier) is couched in more general terms and another, couched in more specific terms, may or may not cover the whole of the scope of what the earlier one contemplated.

13. A number of decisions have requested actions to be completed by the time of a specified meeting of the Conference of Parties. In some of the cases where such completion did not happen and the action is not carried forward by a subsequent decision, this can not necessarily be read as meaning that the decision has lapsed (or alternatively that the deadline can be regarded as implicitly rolled forward), because the true position may be set out elsewhere in the system. Examples include decisions taken by the STRP or Standing Committee to the effect that later events render the original COP mandate no longer appropriate, and that it should be amended or not proceeded with. Hence the present analysis has had to investigate not only COP decisions but also the record of STRP and Standing Committee decisions. The formal reports of COPs have also been researched, as well as reports tabled to COP, e.g., by the Secretary General, since in some cases these reveal an outcome or a change of direction that is not revealed by the sequence of Recommendations and Resolutions alone.

14. The instances of potential conflict identified include the following:

• both COP3 and COP4 took decisions to "approve" the creation of a permanent Secretariat, when it would seem to be possible to take such a formal mandating decision (for a "permanent" body) only once;
• both COP3 and COP4 took decisions to establish the Standing Committee, when it would seem to be possible to take such a formal mandating decision (for a "permanent" body) only once;
• COP4 recommended that countries be regarded as full Parties if they accede and designate a site even if they have not provided a site map, whereas COP6, without rescinding the COP4 decision, decided that a boundary map is required;
• two different definitions of "monitoring" have been adopted in decisions of COP5 and COP8, without the later one being expressed to replace the earlier one as other "definition" decisions have done;
• COP1 and COP6 called for the Ramsar Criteria to be kept under review, while COP4 recommended that future changes to the Criteria be minimized (these might express two valid imperatives to be kept in balance, but some potential for conflict is also there).

15. The instances identified where legal advice might potentially be useful include:

• several cases where the content of a decision has been taken forward into other material, or the action required has been taken (e.g., institutional reforms), and the question would be whether the historical first formal mandate for it may need to remain "on the books" or alternatively can be retired;
• the issue concerning site maps and accession requirements referred to in paragraph 14 above;
• an issue concerning the relationship between COP Decisions and the COP Rules of Procedure (see paragraphs 31-37 below);
• whether a decision-element described as "pursuant to" some adopted framework which is time-expired, should itself be regarded as time-expired solely by virtue of that fact, if in other respects it could be regarded as having some continuing validity (one example cited from COP7);
• when a decision is repeated in two or more places, and the only difference between them is a (not necessarily intended) use of different operative verbs ("urging", "requesting" and "calling upon" Parties to act, for example), whether these otherwise duplicatory texts are significantly legally different for that reason and must each be retained, or alternatively the earlier duplicates could be retired (this has not been comprehensively analysed across the hundreds of decision-elements; but one example cited concerns elements of a COP3 decision which appear again in decisions of COPs 4, 6, 7 and 8).

16. In just one or two cases already in the Convention's history, decisions have explicitly been retired. There has been no particular pattern either to the circumstances in which this has been done or the manner in which it has been done. The examples are Resolution VII.2 (on the STRP) which explains that it "replaces" Resolution VI.7, and Resolution IX.13 (on the question of an endowment fund) which "rescinds" either part or all (it is not quite clear which) of Resolution VIII.29.

17. As a qualitative comment on the analysis overall, there seems to have been a slightly greater preponderance of dilemmas, ambiguities and apparent mismatches arising from the corpus of decisions relating to governance and institutional matters than from those relating to scientific and technical matters. It is possible that the scientific and technical processes of the Convention have allowed a more active "cast-back" and "roll-forward" dimension in the drafting of guidance, etc., than has been possible in relation to administrative or more "political" matters. There is no basis for saying anything more than this from the analysis done here; but it may be an interesting dimension to bear in mind in future.

Some discussion issues arising

18. The issues highlighted above concerning potential conflicts and scope for legal advice might be a first priority area for discussion. Some examples of other matters which have arisen, and on which an orientation may need deciding, are mentioned below. In many of these cases, the choice of an approach to take will be a matter of preference rather than of technical considerations. One of the Standing Committee autumn 2006 consultation respondents suggested that development of principles and policy guidance in this area could be beneficial (see "Lessons and other thoughts for future Ramsar decision-making" below).

19. Issue (a). One such question, which may have a legal dimension but equally is probably a matter of what policy the Parties wish to adopt, concerns how punctilious to be in general in judging that a phrase or a sentiment in a decision is the same as or different from a phrase or sentiment in another decision. Some language approximations occur, to a degree, through official translation of decision texts. In addition, in some cases it would probably be common ground that different wordings have been used within one language but at different times, for things where clearly the same meaning was intended. On the other hand, there are occasions where a precise choice of a particular word embodies a deliberate balance and negotiation of some kind, and it should not be interpreted in an "approximate" way when comparing texts.

20. Experience and knowledge of which of these scenarios is likely to be the case in a given instance is critical for this whole process. External legal or other assistance may be required at some stage to complete the task defined by Resolution IX.17, but it will be important to integrate it with "inside knowledge" on this kind of dimension.

21. In the analysis conducted so far, a degree of pragmatism has been applied to this, using an awareness of where one or other of these attitudes seems most relevant. On the whole the tendency has been to err in favour of caution, since a more liberal approach could be applied to the results later, but it would be harder to make a correction in the reverse direction. A key methodological safeguard in this regard has been to analyse decisions according to quite finely-divided sub-elements.

22. Issue (b). A similar kind of "inside knowledge" will be important for any decisions about retiral of preambular elements. Some approaches elsewhere regard preambles of historical decisions as more or less dispensable in later years. This is true for many Ramsar COP decisions, too, but there are also instances where a preamble contains a fundamental statement of principle or captures a policy turning-point, which may not be apparent except to those with a political understanding of the inner working of the Convention, and these should be retained. (In a few instances there are also preambular statements which should perhaps more properly have been included in operative paragraphs, and vice versa - this is an issue for "lessons learned" on effective approaches to decision drafting, dealt with later in this paper below).

23. Issue (c). Reference has been made above to instances where the outcome of an issue is to be discovered not in a COP decision but in a decision of another Convention body, usually the Standing Committee or STRP. This produces situations where an earlier COP decision is not expressly superseded by a later one, but logically should be treated as having either de facto lapsed or de facto been rolled forward beyond its original time-limit. In general, in the case of lapsing, whether such a scenario is a sufficient basis for deciding that a decision is no longer valid and can be retired, may merit some discussion. (For an example, see the entry in Annex 3 relating to Resolution VII.10).

24. Issue (d). In relation to one particular kind of decision, namely those relating to issues at specific sites, the following comment is made in the analysis document: "A general decision should be taken about what approach to take to these 'specific sites' Resolutions/Recommendations. Many of the specific concerns and requested actions will be no longer current; but discovering the true situation in that regard will depend to a large extent on materials such as National Reports to subsequent COPs, Advisory Mission reports and general correspondence, etc., rather than necessarily being contained in subsequent COP decision texts. Some elements, such as expressions of concern about a particular instance of damage or loss, or approval of positive steps that have been taken, remain as a valid record of the COP's view of past events. Some sites or cases feature in several successive COP decisions as a long-running story advances, but the 'audit trail' of that story may be useful to retain, even if some messages are repeated. An option would therefore be to propose leaving such Resolutions/Recommendations 'on the books' in their original form." Again an attitude should probably be struck on the principle of this.

25. Issue (e). Potential for consolidation of decision-elements has been identified in a considerable number of instances, not surprisingly. Some options for ways of taking this forward are presented in paragraph 41 below. First of all, though, it could be useful to clarify a general view on the overall scale of consolidation that might be desirable.

26. Parties in the past have had some understandable hesitation about this, and the previous call for consolidation (Resolution VI.11) was never implemented. A paper tabled at COP7 in 1999 (COP7 DOC 13.1) later picked up the issue (at a time when there were only 120 adopted decisions in place, compared to the 253 in place now). The paper reported on the establishment instead of a "key concepts index", maintained on the Ramsar Web site (http://ramsar.org/index_keyword.htm). Although no specific decision was taken by COP7, it accepted the index as a helpful step.

27. Some of the comments received from Standing Committee members in relation to the present exercise (during the consultation round in August-September 2006) have advocated such an indexing/cross-referencing tool (though not necessarily as an alternative to other measures), and it is possible that awareness of the existing indexes (http://ramsar.org/index_keyword.htm and http://www.ramsar.org/index_global.htm) could be better promoted. Maintenance of such tools of course requires time and resources, and a caveat is required on the present index that it is not fully up to date (post COP9) and has some other gaps. It should be noted that the Ramsar Wise Use Handbooks have also collated thematically linked decisions in a way which also contributes to the general aim expressed in Resolution VI.11.

28. Work on proper consolidation would obviously also have resource implications. On the other hand, a full statement of the potential benefits has never been provided, and something of this kind could be well worth drawing up. Examples of such benefits would include:

• better comprehension of the COP's decisions;
• considerable streamlining (shortening) of the decision material that Parties would have to have regard to, as being currently in effect;
• clearer awareness of some important historical decisions which are still in effect but may have lacked visibility in recent years.

29. Issue (f). One type of decision that technically could be regarded as time-limited, but where there may be a "political" judgement to make about what approach to take, is the type that expresses thanks, e.g., to a host country for hosting a COP. As noted in the analysis table, on the one hand Parties are no less thankful at a later date than they were at the time of adopting the Resolution, so such decisions are not "redundant" in that sense; but on the other hand these decisions have no real relevance to ongoing implementation of the Convention. (In some cases they are mixed together with more substantive issues, but that is a different matter and the action to take in respect of those issues should be considered on the merits of each case.)

30. A similar case relates to a specific decision of thanks to a departing Secretary General. Although of only historical interest and with no operative parts, there may be a wish to retain it, and again a decision about the best political course of action might be desirable. (For an example, see Resolution VI.8.) There has not been consistent treatment of this kind of issue over the years - retiral would render that fact irrelevant, but retention would raise an issue about deciding what (consistent) approach to take in future to such decisions.

31. Issue (g). The Resolution IX.17 review is analyzing Resolutions and Recommendations. COPs also adopt other decisions, for example to agree the agenda, set up committees, accept credentials, etc. These are properly beyond the scope of the Resolution IX.17 exercise, and properly not adopted as Resolutions or Recommendations, because they have effect only for the duration of the individual COP and expire automatically at the end of that COP.

32. One such decision-type is different, however, namely the decision which agrees Rules of Procedure for the COP. There are three respects in which this is more akin to a Resolution/Recommendation:

i) It has effect after the COP in being the intersessional source of operating principles for the Standing Committee, since the SC follows the COP Rules mutatis mutandis;

ii) In practice each COP does not originate its Rules de novo, but starts from the text of the preceding COP's Rules and makes any amendments felt necessary (in effect the Parties are agreeing Rules for COPs in general, which can be amended later if required);

iii) Resolutions and Recommendations have been adopted which relate to issues within the scope of the Rules of Procedure (e.g., Recommendatioin 5.15, Resolution VI.15).

33. In relation to point (ii) above, Rule 1 of the Rules sets them up to be adopted by each COP at the start of the meeting - it reads as follows:

"These rules of procedure shall apply to any meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especially as Waterfowl Habitat (Ramsar, Iran, 1971) convened in accordance with article 6 of the Convention, subject to their adoption by consensus at the start of each meeting of the Conference of the Parties."

34. As a result of point (iii) above, an analysis of redundancies and duplications, etc., in COP decisions, such as the current Resolution IX.17 work, must embrace Rules of Procedure decisions as well as Resolutions and Recommendations.

35. Point (ii)/para 3 above is not too dissimilar to the situation with adoption of decisions such as that setting out the modus operandi for the STRP, which continues in effect until such time as a subsequent COP may wish to amend it - yet that particular decision is effected through a Resolution.

36. These considerations thus raise a question as to whether Rules of Procedure decisions might more logically be adopted as Resolutions in future.

37. Incidentally, irrespective of the view taken on this, the general point made in para 31 above is an enduring reason why it is valid in Ramsar to speak about "decisions", "Resolutions", and "Recommendations" as distinct terms with specific meanings ("decision" perhaps being best seen as a generic term which includes the other two plus those other decisions made by COP which are neither of these two types).

38. Issue (h). Although the original analysis reported here was done according to a chronological method, the results in Annex 3 present COP decisions in thematic groupings. The topic categories were chosen as those which have been the most helpful and logical for seeing the picture that emerges and the actions that might be appropriate; but it may be worth explicitly confirming that this works well for new readers before advancing with it as the structure for future work.

39. The principle of thematic listings, both through the key concepts index (see above) and Annex 3 to the present paper, was welcomed by one of the Standing Committee autumn 2006 consultation respondents, with the suggestion that this part of the current work could be a useful resource in its own right.

Options for action, including for COP10

40. A number of possible action steps (and in some cases options for choices to make) are now apparent, and these are given below. There may of course be others, and the Standing Committee's suggestions will be welcome. Note that highlighted possibilities in Annex 3 for retiral and consolidation, etc., relate in most cases to specific sections of a decision, since rarely do the same considerations apply to every element of a decision unless it is one of the Resolutions or Recommendations that are very brief.

41. Actions could be taken to:

• obtain legal advice on the issues highlighted as possibly needing it, or on any others recommended by the Standing Committee;

• decide an attitude of principle concerning some of the issues of principle outlined in the present paper;

• promote the thematically-grouped listing of decisions in Annex 3 to the present paper more widely, referring also to the Ramsar Web site's Key Concepts Index and to the content of the Wise Use Handbooks series;

• draw up a list or index of decision elements regarded as currently still in effect (i.e., the inverse of the list of retiral possibilities, without actually effecting any formal retirals);

• decide on and implement a process for possible retirals of decisions or "decision-elements", which could for example consist of:

  o presenting for COP approval a list of proposed retirals (the individual texts of which would be retained in an archive) - with attention to any consequential amendments required for comprehension in the retained portions of the decisions concerned);
  o processing such retirals for a selected block of decisions at one time (for manageability/feasibility reasons) - e.g., at COP10 deal with those arising from COPs 1-3, at COP11 deal with those arising from COPs 4-7, and so on; OR
  o attempting to achieve as much of a "clean sweep" as possible across the history of the Convention on the first occasion;

• decide on and implement a process for possible consolidation of decisions or "decision-elements", which could for example consist of:

  o proceeding opportunistically, using the occasion of any new Resolution on a relevant topic to enact the recommended consolidation of previous material on that topic, expressly retiring the "old" material, and dealing with such old material in ways suggested below; OR
  o proceeding more proactively, presenting for COP approval a set of Resolutions which would be consolidations of those texts which merit it;
  o retiring (to an archive) the texts from which the new consolidations were derived;
  o appending an "audit trail" of cross-references to the source-passages in each case;
  o progressing with a feasible block of material at each future COP (if enacting all the consolidations identified here constitutes more work than would be feasible for COP10), dealing with particular subject-areas/clusters at a time (as opposed to particular time-periods at a time, cf. the suggestion for retirals above); OR
  o attempting to achieve as much of a "clean sweep" as possible across the history of the Convention in a package of consolidations developed for presentation to COP11;

• distil lessons emerging from the work done under Resolution IX.17 into suggestions for "good practice" in decision-making under the Ramsar Convention in future (see below).

Lessons and other thoughts for future Ramsar decision-making

42. In the course of the present work, some perspective has been gained on which approaches to crafting COP decisions are more likely or less likely to lead to difficulties in future when considering which elements have continuing effect and which have been overtaken. Similarly, benefits and disbenefits can be identified among different approaches to decision-crafting in areas that have already been the subject of many previous decisions.

43. Examples of more helpful practice include:

• not mixing together items which are time-limited with items that are more enduring or open-ended, especially not in the same paragraph;
• being very explicit about when a decision is designed to supersede an earlier one;
• treating consistently from one period to another the types of decision that are bound to recur (e.g., budget adoption, issues at specific sites, thanks to hosts, etc.);
• observing a consistent and logical rationale for deciding which items should be preambular and which should be substantive;
• ensuring that "audit-trails" for actions mandated by COP decisions come back to the COP and do not end in other more hard-to-discover places;
• having a systematic process during drafting phases (prior to and during COPs) for checking compatibility of elements across decisions, both "sideways" within the different proposals for one COP and "backwards" to decisions of previous COPs.

44. Further experience from other conventions, and aspects of Ramsar's own deliberations under the process instituted by Resolution VIII.45, will also be relevant to these lines of thinking.

45. The comments above are intended only to introduce this dimension, and it has not been possible at this stage to present any fuller treatment of it. It is however seen as an integral and highly important part of the issue, and the intention would be for an additional paper on this to be developed and circulated to the Standing Committee for comment later in 2007. It is hoped that Dave Pritchard would be willing and able to assist with this as a continuation of his work on this issue so far. A possible culmination of this might be that some "principles of good practice for effective decision-making" could be presented for consideration by COP10.

Annex 1

Terms of Reference and timelines for Review of COP Decisions (Resolution IX.17), as circulated in August 2006 and agreed by the Standing Committee

1. Ensuring discussion at the STRP, to flag potential linkages with tasks in the Panel's work programme involving reviews of aspects of scientific & technical guidance (to identify duplications, conflicts, scope for consolidation etc) - completed, at STRP 13 meeting.

2. Scoping discussions with Secretariat Communications Officer D Peck, including researching history of the action taken by the Secretariat in response to Resolution VI.11 on consolidation of Recommendations and Resolutions of the Conference of Parties - June 2006 (completed).

3. Researching approaches taken by other relevant MEAs to similar mandates from their COPs, as appropriate - June 2006, including meetings with relevant staff of other MEA Secretariats as appropriate, from then on (partly undertaken).

4. Research and establish links, where relevant, with other information management initiatives such as the UNEP Issue-based Modules and other MEA knowledge management projects - June - August 2006, including attendance at the UNEP KM series of meetings in June 2006 (largely completed but aspects on-going).

5. Research and analysis, indexing and drafting of recommendations* - during 2006 and 2007, using in particular D E Pritchard secondment phases in June 2006 and October 2006 (and possibilities for 2007 to be explored).

*Note: It is anticipated that recommendations will indicate decisions that could be taken at COP10 to retire Resolutions/Recommendations (or parts thereof) that are clearly redundant. Concerning the separate issue of possibilities for consolidation, recommendations will be made concerning possible ways forward, illustrated with examples. There may also be recommendations to make concerning approaches to future COP decision-making which would help to minimize redundancies and duplications.

6. Progress report to SC35, February 2007 - including confirmation of the methodology .

7. Commissioning and incorporation of external legal advice if required and requested by SC, mid-2007.

8. Integration of findings as appropriate with relevant guidance review tasks of STRP, as mentioned in (2) above, as per timelines in STRP work plan.

9. Final report and recommendations to Standing Committee 36 and COP 10, 2008.

Annex 2

STRP work programme tasks involving reviews of previous guidance/Resolutions etc, which need to link with the Resolution IX.17 work on review of COP decisions

(Once the post-STRP 13 Work Programme is in circulation, more detail should be added to some of what is given below, including identifying responsible individuals in relation to each task with whom liaison will be established to ensure coordination as appropriate).

The order in which these items are presented reflects some logical linkages, and does not imply anything in respect of the sequence and timing of work.

Task 5: Review the range of existing Ramsar guidance (in conjunction with actions requested in Resolution IX.17), with a view inter alia to identifying gaps (including by reference to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Conceptual Framework), repackaging older guidance into updated documents, retiring or withdrawing outdated documents (including Recommendation 4.10 and Resolution 5.6), and make recommendations in this regard to COP10. (STRP12, Resolution IX.1 Annex A, COP9 DOC 16) STRP 2006-2008 high priority

Task 1: Review and comment on proposals from Parties for COP Resolutions with technical content, and provide this advice to the Standing Committee and COP. (Standing Committee Subgroup on COP9)

Task 15: Further review the harmonization of definitions and terms related to ecosystem benefits/services (with reference to Resolution VIII.7 paragraph 15 and COP9 DOC. 16, and taking into account the usage of such terms in other international fora), and report to COP10. (Resolution IX.1 Annex A). STRP 2006-2008 high priority

(NOTE: could be relevant to "identification of conflicts" part of Res IX.17).

Task 52(i): Conduct a review of data and information needs for Ramsar sites and of the implications for official reporting, the further development of the Ramsar Sites Information Service, and the scope for harmonizing such reporting with the needs of other multilateral environmental agreements.

(NOTE: Res IX.17 review could be relevant in tracking information requirements specified in COP decisions. See also list of such items identified in IOP site monitoring proposal paper tabled at STRP 13).

Task 54: Prepare further consolidated guidance on the overall process of detecting, reporting and responding to change in ecological character, including guidelines for determining when such a change is too trivial to require reporting, having regard to the reasons why a given site is important and the conservation objectives set for it. (Resolution VIII.8, STRP 2003-2005 work plan) STRP 2006-2008 high priority

(NOTE: the "consolidation" aspect of this should be related where possible with the Res IX.17 work).

(Task 83(i): Prepare a consolidation of Ramsar guidance on river basin management, to bring together Wise Use Handbook 4 and the COP9 guidance in Resolution IX1 Annex Ci, (STRP12).

(NOTE: Here for completeness only - this task does NOT have implications for the Res IX.17 work, since the "consolidation" referred to is between a single COP decision and other material, not between COP decisions).

Task 107: Review the suite of existing guidance for selection of Ramsar sites of specific wetland types and examine its usefulness to Parties in the light of their experience of its application; assess the need for additional guidance on these or other wetland types, in the context inter alia of a response to the request of the Convention on Biological Diversity (Decision VII/4) to elaborate additional site selection guidelines and related issues. (STRP12) STRP 2006-2008 high priority

(NOTE: relevance to Res IX.17 work is probably limited only to identification of any conflicts in guidance that would affect its "usefulness to Parties").

Task 161: Review and as necessary develop an overall strategy and framework for sector-based guidance under the Convention. (STRP12)

(NOTE: Scope for dovetailing any conclusions about approaches to future COP decision-making).

Annex 3

Resolution IX.17 - Review of the decisions of the Conference of Parties:
Thematic tabulation of findings, and suggestions for possible actions

Note: The classification of theme categories here is pragmatic, taking into account the structure of other categorizations in use, e.g., the Ramsar Wise Use Handbooks series. It would be possible to debate this indefinitely, since trends in definition of issues have changed over time, and there are many COP decisions that combine elements from several of these headings. The latter will be the case however the headings are structured, and a decision assigned here to one category may relate also to several other categories. Irrespective of this, each decision is assigned only to one category (e.g., Wetlands for the Future in finance rather than capacity-building; CEPA oversight panel in governance rather than CEPA).

To minimize difficulties arising from this, the number of categories has been kept to a minimum. There would be many possible subdivisions of each of them, but subdividing would compound the problem. Within each category, decisions are arranged in chronological order.

COP9 decisions are included to show their titles and distribution among topics, since many are referred to in the analysis. They are included in the numbers totals given too.

NB numbering conventions have changed over the years, in terms of whether an Annex is counted separately or not.

Contents, and thematic categories used in this analysis

1. Convention governance and administration