Ramsar Convention signs Memorandum of Cooperation with the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT)

Acting Secretary General Ania Grobicki and Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust Chief Executive, Martin Spray, signed a Memorandum of Cooperation on 15 June 2016.

Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) is one of the six International Organization Partners (IOP) of the Ramsar Convention. This wetland conservation charity is based in the United Kingdom and has over 200,000 members. WWT has nine reserves with visitor centres receiving over one million visitors per year.

The purpose of this Memorandum of Cooperation is to provide a flexible framework for collaboration between Contracting Parties, mobilizing WWT’s technical and capacity building expertise for an improved implementation of the Ramsar Convention.

WWT engages in activities relevant to the implementation of the Ramsar Convention across the world under the following general themes:

• Monitoring - especially wetland quality and wetland species;
• Identifying and countering threats to wetlands;
• Wetland creation, restoration and management;
• Developing and demonstrating best practice in wetland conservation;
• Wetlands and poverty alleviation;
• Wetland benefits (ecosystem services);
• Communication, Education, Participation and Awareness (CEPA);
• Global advocacy;
• Capacity-building.

The following list includes a few areas of cooperation between the Secretariat of the Ramsar Convention and WWT, in its new role as a Ramsar IOP (this list is not exclusive and cooperation could be developed within the areas described above at any time).

• Expanding the Wetland Link International (WLI) network of wetland centres and their promotion as key places of learning and training about wetlands;
• Closer collaboration with WLI on assessing training and educational needs of wetland education centres;
• Cooperation on various outreach campaigns such as the Flight of the Swans project of WWT;
• Collaborating in preparation for various events such as INTECOL 10 and the 2016 IUCN World Conservation Congress;
• Aiding in the harmonisation of wetland conservation policies across Multilateral Environmental Agreements (Ramsar, CMS, AEWA, CBD), the UN and other international partners, especially those relating to disease threats to wetlands.