U.S. Wallets Open for Global Wetlands Conservation

GLAND, Switzerland, January 21, 2004 (ENS) - The funding of small wetlands conservation projects around the world will flow from the U.S. treasury for the next five years, the Ramsar Convention Bureau announced today.

Delegates from the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service attended the 30th meeting of the Ramsar Convention Standing Committee in Gland last week and each signed a separate agreement to fund small wetlands conservation endeavors.

At the gala dinner for Standing Committee delegates and observers, hosted by the Swiss Agency for the Environment, Forests, and Landscape, Joyce Namde of the U.S. State Department and Dr. Herbert Raffaele of the Fish and Wildlife Service presented two memoranda of cooperation to be signed by Ramsar's Secretary General, Dr. Peter Bridgewater.

At the Ramsar meeting last week, from left: Dr. Peter Bridgewater, Joyce Namde, and Dr. Herbert Raffaele (All photos courtesy Ramsar Secretariat)

There are presently 138 Parties to the Convention, with 1,328 wetland sites, totaling 111.9 million hectares, designated for inclusion in the Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance.

Since 1995, the Ramsar Secretariat, the U.S. State Department, and the Fish and Wildlife Service have operated a special initiative, the Wetlands for the Future (WFF) training program, to benefit Latin American and Caribbean institutions and individuals through capacity building and training in the conservation and wise use of wetlands.

Some 25 projects each year have been funded through the Wetlands for the Future Fund over the past eight years, at the rate of US$250,000 per year.

The new memorandum expresses the U.S. commitment to continuing the program from 2003 through to 2008, the period covered by the Ramsar Strategic Plan.

Flamingos at Argentina's Laguna Brava, a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention (Photo by Horacio de la Fuente)

The Corporate Wetlands Restoration Partnership (CWRP) is a public-private partnership between the United States federal government, U.S. state governments and private corporations to restore wetlands and other aquatic habitats.

The partnership's objective is to stop and reverse the degradation of America's fresh and saltwater wetlands and other aquatic habitats, and it is facilitated by the Coastal America Partnership in Washington, DC. This multi-agency federal partnership is managed by a group of nationally recognized marine scientists who volunteer so that the foundation can meet its goals for protecting, preserving and restoring aquatic habitats.

The Corporate Wetlands Restoration Partnership (CWRP) has decided to expand its activities to fund international projects, and so has elected to fund Ramsar's Wetlands for the Future Fund and, in addition, the Ramsar Small Grants Fund.

Homa lagoon on Turkey's Gediz Delta (Photo by Tobias Salathé)

It has been financing an average of 15 to 20 projects per year since 1992, up to a value of 40,000 Swiss francs (US$32,000) each, through voluntary contributions provided usually by Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, United Kingdom, the United States, and especially Sweden, as well as by WWF and other nongovernmental sources.

The mechanism for disbursing CWRP funds will be through the Coastal America Foundation, and project proposals evaluated and recommended by the Ramsar Bureau will be circulated for donations for potential support by CWRP partners.

Wetlands for the Future Fund projects are restricted to Latin American proposals, but the Ramsar Small Grants Fund is open to proposals from all countries listed by the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, both developing countries and those with economies in transition.