Ramsar Convention on Wetlands

More Photos of the 8th Meeting of the Scientific and Technical Review Panel (STRP)

The Inevitable Reception!!   --  Party on.

PEAT RULES! Jack Reiley (International Peat Society) and Rob Stoneman (International Mire Conservation Group) munch on the peat hors d'oeuvres and make disparaging comments about non-peat issues.

Bill Streever (Society of Wetland Scientists) tries unconvincingly  to empathize with the Ramsar Bureau's Mireille Katz's feelings about hors d'oeuvres made from peat.

Chris Tydeman (WWF) and Peter Maitland (UK) disagree, with some asperity, about their favorite Animaniacs (Chris for "Pinky", Peter's for "The Brain"). Hopefully, Peter will win.

Toomas Saat (Estonia) listens with tolerant amusement as the Bureau's Annette Keller tries to explain about peat hors d'oeuvres.  Explaining about peat -- to an Estonian!!

Tex Hawkins (USA), who has spent many years in Costa Rica, smiles broadly as Jorge Jiménez (Costa Rica) lays on all the newest Costa Rican in-jokes.  Anette Keller (foreground) reels away in a preliminary kind of shock.

Nick Davidson (Wetlands International, center) weighs comments from a gentleman with a small antenna wired into his brain, and wonders what he should say next, but can't think of anything, but, of course, carries on nonetheless. 

Prof  Harry Chabwela (Zambia), left, gazes approvingly at his former student, the Bureau's Musonda Mumba, Assistant to the Regional Coordinator for Africa, who gazes approvingly at the camera..

Dr Antoinette Wannebo (CIESIN) struggles politely to figure out what the Bureau's Bill Phillips (back to camera) is using up Party Time to express, whilst in the background (center) Scott Frazier explains again about the peat hors d'oeuvres.

Bill Streever (Society of Wetland Scientists) takes a break at 2330 meters in the pre-STRP excursion in the Alps, during a very rare break in the cold and windy rain.

Quite a few members of the Ramsar Bureau gather to share disgusting sugary treats to celebrate the wonderful STRP8 participants going away and letting them get back to their own terrible agendae.

For further information, 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 8 October 1999, Dwight Peck, Ramsar.