PDF superior CONVENTION ON WETLANDS (Ramsar, Iran, 1971) 36 th Meeting of the Standing Committee

17. It may be argued that the Secretariat similarly possesses an international personality, separate from that of UNEP, as a treaty body which is directed by and answerable to the Conference of the Parties. The Secretariat is not a programme within the primary structure of UNEP and is not guided by the Governing Council of UNEP. Indeed, it is UNEP’s responsibility to ensure that the Secretariat has the autonomy needed to perform its functions under the Convention and in accordance with the policy, budgetary and operational guidance it receives from the Conference of the Parties. UNEP does not speak for CITES in international meetings. Rather, the Secretariat participates as an independent entity in such fora, speaking on behalf of the Convention and its Parties.

construction workers and their families. This will involve possible negative impacts and implications for the ecological character of this site and its environs, especially the major catchments located in neighboring Kenya. The Secretariat contacted the AA on 4 July 2007 informing them about the reports, asking for further information, encouraging cooperation with the National Environmental Management Council, and requesting for update on the situation. After many reminders, a response was finally received from the Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism (on 24 September 2007 but dated back to 30th August 2007), briefing the Secretariat on the history of the problem and the ESIA carried out, and welcoming the technical assistance offered through a proposed Ramsar Advisory Mission. Paul Mafabi (chair of the Ramsar Standing Committee) attended the consultative meeting on 12 July 2007 to discuss EIA and SIA for the proposed soda ash development. The Secretariat has drafted the ToR for such a RAM mission and passed them on to the AA on 21 December 2007 for review and approval of the proposed dates for the mission. We are awaiting the green light from the government to proceed with the mission during the last week of January 2008.

C.2 Potential activity/project concept (ii): Strategic policy-oriented overview. One possibility might be for the IOPs to take some collective responsibility for animating an agenda for wetland monitoring as a whole, informed both by global perspectives and on- the-ground engagement. There is scope for a more integrated overview to be developed of all the ways in which such monitoring currently happens in the Convention, how it can link to best effect with what happens under other international instruments and processes, and how the full suite of relevant activities might be organised (and if necessary modified) to operate in the most effective way. The scope of monitoring sites vis-à-vis monitoring landscape-scale areas (e.g., river basins) is another issue needing attention. This could be undertaken by means of inputs to the STRP work referred to in paras 7 and 11 of this paper above. The scale and dimensions (and resourcing) of such inputs would need further discussion. (Presentation of para A.1 above may already represent one helpful step!). C.3 Potential activity/project concept (iii): Assisting Ramsar Parties to implement

3. In line with Decision SC34-2, the Secretariat hosted a further meeting with the IOPs in Gland on 28 September 2006. Participants in the meeting were: Dave Pritchard (BirdLife International), Frank Rijbersman (IWMI), Ibrahim Thiaw and Mark Smith (IUCN), Jane Madgwick (Wetlands International), Gordon Shepherd and Jamie Pittock (WWF), and Peter Bridgewater, Nick Davidson, Tobias Salathe, Margarita Astrálaga (Ramsar Secretariat). In addition, the meeting was fortunate also to have the participation of Standing Committee Chairs Paul Mafabi, John Bowleg and Herb Raffaele, who were present in Gland for Secretariat meetings at that time.

5. The information paper DOC.15 referred to can be found on the Ramsar Web site at http://www.ramsar.org/cop8/cop8_doc_15_e.htm. The “detailed guidance” additionally referred to and originally tabled at COP8 includes all the content of DOC.15, plus an additional set of “guiding principles”. This original annex to DOC.15 was significantly shortened at COP8 to become the annex adopted by Resolution VIII.19 and so is no longer on the Ramsar Web site, but the original draft principles can be accessed instead at http://www.med-ina.org/op-3.htm. This latter document is therefore taken to be the text which the cited decisions seek to have “enhanced”, and it has been used as the basis for Working Group consultations.

94. Meanwhile the Secretariat is involved on the Steering Committees of two major GEF projects which will directly support Ramsar implementation. One is “Wings over Wetlands (WOW)” – a project to increase capacity for wetland management for waterbirds on African-Eurasian Flyways. This long-awaited project, launched in November 2006, will directly support a range of aspects of Ramsar implementation and implementation of the African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement (AEWA), including through 11 wetland management demonstration sites (most of which are Ramsar sites), regional information exchange and capacity building, and the development of enhanced tools and resources for identification of flyway-scale key site networks. It is being implemented largely by our IOPs Birdlife International and Wetlands International, with UNEP-WCMC.

3. The work that France carried out, in collaboration with the Secretariat of the Convention, highlighted the need to recognize and reaffirm the stability provided by the administrative authority appointed by the Contracting Party, on the one hand, and that progress should be made in professionalizing the national daily contacts, on the other. Professionalization requires a better definition of the process of appointment, a greater formalization of these people’s tasks, and the availability of capacity building tools.

21. The Contracting Parties of the Ramsar Convention recognize the importance of innovation to respond to a changing world through the development of long-term strategies that can ensure the viability of wetland values contributing to sustainable development. For instance, the increasing role played by globalization and economic growth is sometimes a source of great opportunities, but the current style of economic growth in our world is also harming the environment and widening the gap between rich and poor. Unsustainable business activities and the increasing poverty occurring in various parts of the world are some of the root causes of environmental degradation.

3. In submitting the attached draft Ghana, on behalf of the drafting group, has noted that it recognizes that the draft needs some further consideration and development, notably in the current sequence of its operative paragraphs, and further clarifications especially from Wetlands International concerning the relevance of operative paragraphs 8, 13, 16 and 19 to implementing poverty reduction activities under the Convention. Accordingly, the Secretariat has placed these paragraphs in square brackets […] in the attached draft.

18. In addition, as noted in paragraphs 8-10 above, the BlackSeaWet initiative submitted to this meeting of the Standing Committee for approval is also requesting an allocation of CHF 103,100 for 2007. Once the Standing Committee has determined its approval of this initiative, it then needs to consider whether, taking into account the terms of Resolution IX.7 paragraph 13, it can consider approval of 2007 funding to this initiative and if so, at what level. Including the BlackSeaWet funding request, the total requested for 2007 by regional networks is CHF 245,777 (excluding MedWet) – a considerably larger sum than that allocated in the current 2007 core budget line for such initiatives.

8. However, it is anticipated that it may be prove to be appropriate for certain technical implementation topics on emerging high profile issues for the Convention to prepare a small number of separate technical Resolutions on such matters. For example, one such issue could be the Convention’s response to mitigating natural disasters such as the tsunami in the Indian Ocean in December 2004. Others identified by STRP12 concern water and wetlands, and sustainable fisheries management.

29. Procedurally, this distinction means that those Parties and organizations recognized by a COP decision as permanent observers are automatically invited and admitted to meetings of the Standing Committee as observers, rather than following the procedure for other categories of Standing Committee observers – they need not request admission as observers and be formally admitted to a Standing Committee meeting by decision of the Committee at the beginning of each meeting. Under the relevant COP Rule of Procedure (Rule 6.2), “Such observers may, upon the invitation of the President, participate without the right to vote in the proceedings of any meeting unless at least one third of the Parties present at the meeting object.” As this applies to the Standing Committee, observers can be admitted on the invitation of the Chair of Standing Committee unless at least one third of voting members of the Committee present at the meeting object to their admission.

1. As established in Resolution VIII.29 of the Conference of the Contracting Parties, the Ramsar Endowment Fund shall serve as a mechanism to generate resources for funding projects submitted by eligible countries to the Ramsar Small Grants Fund for Wetland Conservation and Wise Use (SGF), established by Resolution IV.3 of Ramsar COP4 in 1990, and reviewed through Resolutions V.8, VI.6, VII.5 and VIII.29 of subsequent meetings of the Conference.

33. As noted above, the wise use provisions of the Convention apply, as far as possible, to all wetland ecosystems. However, the inclusion of the qualifier in the wise use definition of “within the context of sustainable development, achieved through the implementation of ecosystem approaches”, recognizes that some wetland development may be inevitable and that many developments have important benefits to society. While developments can be facilitated in sustainable ways by approaches elaborated under the Convention, it is not appropriate to imply that ‘development’ is an objective for every wetland. Societal choice is inherent in advancing human well-being and poverty alleviation. Pressures to follow sustainable development precepts and to maintain environmental, economic and social sustainability in land use decisions encourage compromises between individual and collective interests. Within the context of ecosystem approaches, planning processes should be formulated and implemented so as to promote wetland ecosystem services and the maintenance of wetland ecological character at appropriate spatial and temporal scales.

6. Although this call for comment elicited almost zero response, the Secretariat has had discussions with the WCPA on these issues. There is an agreement that the proposed publication from the Secretariat will be a valuable input to the categories summit. There seems little enthusiasm from the protected area community to make changes to the accepted definition of protected areas to include inland or fresh waters. However, the inclusion of the concept of maintenance of ecological processes or services is an

developed by all Secretariat staff through an interactive and integrative process. The basic format used for 2006 has been retained, but our experience with this format has meant we have been able to refine our approach to provide more realistic time allocations for the 2007 plan.

4. AWARE that international cooperative efforts to conserve flyways of migratory waterbirds have also been promoted by many other international bodies and initiatives such as CMS, AEWA, the East Asian-Australasian Flyway Partnership, the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, the Western Hemisphere Migratory Species Initiative, the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN), individual flyway management plans for threatened species, and CMS’s recent Action Plan for the Central Asian Flyway; and that close technical cooperation among these bodies, the Ramsar Convention, and its International Organization Partners has been crucial to success;

After the President has announced the beginning of voting, no representative shall interrupt the voting except on a point of order in connection with the actual conduct of the voting. The President may permit the Parties to explain their votes, either before or after the voting, but may limit the time to be allowed for such explanations. The President shall not permit proposers of proposals or of amendments to proposals to explain their vote on their own proposals or amendments, except if they have been amended.

The CMS staff mentioned that if Ramsar wanted to be under UNEP, care should be taken to avoid payments having to be made out of Nairobi because of the delays that can sometimes extend up to six months. There was discussion of the recruitment process, which has to be done under Galaxy (which creates some delays), though the recommendations made by the CMS Executive Secretary have always been followed by UNEP headquarters. They haven’t yet had a case where the CMS/AEWA preference regarding recruitment was overruled by Nairobi. This poses the problem of the rigidity versus the flexibility of UN rules when applied to organizations that have their secretariats and administrations managed by the UN. It seems not always to be black or white, but rather depends upon how negotiations were made with HQ at the beginning.

40’000 123’329 Inventory, biodiversity assessment and participatory approach. This project aims to elaborate a detailed ecological assessment of the Sarstoon Temash National Park (Ramsar site) Sphagnum peatland, a unique ecosystem across all of Central America, which will provide information on the extent and condition of the wetland area through florist and faunal surveys, on the environmental history of this regionally unique ecosystem and will highlight its biodiversity and conservation value and will promote participation of local indigenous communities in the conservation of the national park. Information collected during this assessment will highlight the biodiversity and conservation value of this Sphagnum peatland and further promote its conservation nationally and regionally.