What's New @ Ramsar

Wetland Training Seminars in the Czech Republic

"Wetlands and Their Role in Landscape Functioning",
5-7 October 2004

The Wetland Training Centre, operating as part of the non-governmental organisation ENKI in cooperation with the Ministry of Environment of the Czech Republic, has launched a new programme of training seminars dealing with wetland conservation and managment.

The first of a series of training seminars aimed at national, regional and local administration offices responsible for nature conservation in the Czech Republic took place 5-7 October 2004 in the Trebon Basin Protected Landscape Area and Biosphere Reserve. The seminar entitled Wetlands and Their Role in Landscape Functioning was attended by 13 participants from the Ministry of Environment, Protected Landscape Area Authorities, County councils, Agency for Nature and Landscape Protection and Czech Inspection of Environment. The topics of the seminar included:

• information about the Ramsar Convention and the obligations of the Czech Republic as a signatory country to the Convention
• wetland functioning in the landscape, their role in water cycle, energy dissipation, matter retention, flood retention, etc.
• negative aspects of catchment drainage, wetland destruction, stream channelisation
• management and restoration of fishponds, streams and their floodplains, and peatbogs
• national legislation dealing with nature conservation, including wetlands

The seminar also included a short field excursion that addressed the problems of intensive utilisation of the Trebon fishponds Ramsar site and visited small oxbow restoration projects within the area.

The second seminar of this programme will take place in May 2005.

The programme communicates basic as well as the most up-to-date information, knowledge and practical experience in the field of wetland conservation, sustainable managment and restoration. It offers the exchange of knowledge and experience between research, field managment and administration. As such the programme is expected to enhance the implementation of Ramsar Convention in the Czech Republic as well as ensure wetland conservation according to Czech legislation.

Prepared by Martina Eiseltová, ENKI, and Libuse Vlasakova, Ministry of Environment
Prague

For further information about the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, please contact the Ramsar Convention Secretariat, Rue Mauverney 28, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland (tel +41 22 999 0170, fax +41 22 999 0169, e-mail ). Posted 15 December 2004, Dwight Peck, Ramsar.