What's New @ Ramsar

New book on lakes

Lebendige Seen ~ Living Lakes ~ Lagos vivos

Living Lakes: a Survey of the Living Lakes of the world (Stadler, 2001) [English title]

by Gerhard Thielcke and Jürgen Resch

This well-written and extremely well-illustrated folio-size book is newly available from Stadler Verlag at a fairly moderate cost. Here is the English version of the blurb from the book jacket:

"Freshwater is one of the basic needs of man, flora and fauna. However, 1.2 billion people have no access to clean drinking-water, while deserts continue to expand. Many people depend on lakes for their drinking-water; at the same time, large quantities of nutrients and pollutants flow into the very same lakes. Many people earn their living by catching fish or mussels, or by hunting water-birds and seals. Engineers have managed to dry up many lakes and create new ones elsewhere. Lake-shores have always been favoured areas of human settlement, but they are also habitat for many of our fellow creatures. Lakes are crossroads for migratory birds, but also popular resorts for swimming- and boating-tourists. "Living Lakes" discusses the dilemmas arising of these conflicts of interests as faced by 13 lakes all over the world and describes the solutions that have been tried and tested."

With all texts in German, English, and Spanish, some sixty pages are devoted to describing the nature of lakes, the problems facing them, and the potential solutions, including a description of the Global Nature Fund and its Living Lakes Network, followed by 130 pages of text and superb photographs on 13 exceptional lake systems around the world, discussed not only in terms of their importance but also for their exemplary nature in illustrating problems and solutions.

Among these 13 lakes of the Living Lakes Network are such well-known Ramsar sites as Lake Constance (the Bodensee) between Austriia, Germany and Switzerland, now a model for cross-sectoral cooperation; Lake Biwa in Japan; South Africa's Lake St. Lucia, with photographs of the effects that heavy metal mining (the subject of a Ramsar Advisory Mission in 1992) in the exquisite dune systems would have had, had it been allowed to go forward; Nestos in Greece; and others.

The new book is presumably available in good bookshops, but one place from which it can be ordered -- for 49.80 deutsch marks [25.46 Euros] plus 7 DM for postage and handling --  is DUH Umweltschutz-Service, Güttinger Str. 19, 78315 Radolfzell, Germany, telephone +49 7732 999518, fax +49 7732 999577, order number 2056.

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 ). Posted 12 February 2001, Dwight Peck, Ramsar.