The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands

Deadline extended for the Great Photo Chase

Bill Phillips reports:

The deadline for photos for the Great Photo Chase has now passed, and while the response has been excellent we’ve decided to extend the deadline until 30 November.

Again, thank you to all the people who have responded so willingly and have been inundating us with some amazing photos!!! Thank you also to all those who have promised photos – I look forward to getting those in the near future.

We are getting a good blend of photos showing stunning landscapes, biodiversity and people using wetlands wisely. The gaps we have are geographical (see below) and I also sense we are yet to get images that can showcase the full range of wetlands from around the world. Not much is coming in for coastal systems, and the range of species is somewhat limited, too.

At the outset we said that project aimed to include photos from every Contracting Party and so below I have listed from which we have yet to receive any photos. Please help us to fill these gaps. I’ve also been asked many times if we only want photos of Ramsar sites. My answer has been that while we wish to include photos from as many Ramsar sites as possible, spectacular photos from any wetland, anywhere in the world is what we are chasing.

Finally, a plea - remember to send us JPGs (or similar small file size) to view first and, then if your image is chosen, we will contact you to request the original. I have received some mega-sized files that have almost crashed my system – so please, if you can, send low resolution files for now.

Contracting Parties for which we have yet to received any photos:

Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, Chad, Colombia, Comoros, Cyprus, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, El Salvador, Finland, Gabon, Gambia, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Islamic Republic of Iran, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lebanon, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malawi, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Monaco, Mongolia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Syria, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Viet Nam, Yugoslavia, Zambia

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 6 November 2001, Dwight Peck, Ramsar.