What's New @ Ramsar

Russian Federation reports on Small Grants Fund project in Kamchatka

The Ramsar Small Grants Fund project "Development of a monitoring programme and draft management plans for the Ramsar sites located on the Kamchatka Peninsula" (1998) has been successfully accomplished, providing management plans and ensuring improved protection of four Ramsar sites in Russia. The management plans have been elaborated according to the Ramsar guidelines for management planning and contain information about the state of biological diversity and nature resource users for Ramsar sites Parapolsky Dol, Moroshechnaya River, Utkholok Cape and Karaginsky Island. An inventory of the wetlands and evaluation of natural resources was carried out, and an economic valuation of the natural values of the area provide the following figures (in USD) - the estimated cost of vertebrate animals alone in Parapolsky Dol Ramsar site is 21.0 million, Moroshechnaya River - 37.5, Utkholok Cape is 27.5 million USD and estimate reaches 60 million USD in the Karaginsky Island Ramsar site. The official protection status of the sites was enhanced when documents regulating economic activity in the sites and their protection, as well as determining the site boundaries and area, were prepared and approved by the Administration of the Koryak Autonomous Area as a result of the project. The project was supervised by Prof. Vitaly G. Krivenko of the Research Institute for Nature Conservation (a Ramsar Award winner in 1999) and implemented by the Centre of International Projects of the State Committee on Ecology of Russia and the Centre of Study of Eurasian Migratory Animals.

-- reported by Inga Racinska, Ramsar.

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 2 May 2001, Dwight Peck, Ramsar.