When was the ramsar convention introduced

More than any other member state, though they tend to be relatively small. Currently we have sites, as well as another 16 in our Overseas Territories and Crown Dependences, covering nearly 13,km2.

For comparison, the US has 38 sites totalling 18,km2. Today, the Convention has 2, listed wetlands — from the Camargue to the Pantanal — covering 2. Though Ramsar has no teeth it cannot punish member states for violations , it is often instrumental in protecting sites under threat. And it has raised the profile of wetland conservation immeasurably.

Some countries — including Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Singapore — are yet to sign, and many more wetlands need to be listed. World Wetlands Day is celebrated on 2 February every year, to mark the signing of the treaty and to raise awareness.

Mark Carwardine Zoologist, activist, author and presenter. Despite intersessional meetings in a Working Group linked to the Subgroup on Finance, the document as presented at COP 6 was far from unanimously agreed. These uncertainties, mostly related to budgetary issues, remained in the COP 6 discussions. With considerable reservation, the plan was eventually adopted through Resolution 6.

The plan also emphasised the need for greater involvement of NGOs, beyond the IOPs to assist with implementation at national level. Through the plan it was hoped that technical and policy work of the convention would mesh with the work of the Convention on Biological Diversity and given its involvement with waterfowl, the work of the Convention on Migratory Species.

Running to some 52 pages, this was less a plan than a treatise. It attempted to cram into one document everything the convention was doing, or might do in the future, drawing widely on the outcomes from the World Summit for Sustainable Development Johannesburg, South Africa, In familiar wording, the preamble to the Plan noted that despite the many tangible achievements, and even with increasing awareness of the importance of wetland conservation and wise use for human well-being, there was a continuing challenge for the Contracting Parties to ensure conservation and sustainable wise use of their wetlands and water resources within the context of global pressures and changes.

How had the development of such a prolix strategic plan come about? The genesis of the plan began at Standing Committee 24 The plan was to be drafted by member subgroup, including Parties but also IOPs. The Standing Committee agreed to consult with the Parties in their regions both before and after Standing Committee meetings so that they can fully represent their regions.

The degree to which that was effective was somewhat variable. There was argument concerning the use of quantitative indicators during development of the plan. This was a means of creating leverage on Parties, especially from developing countries, to establish Ramsar sites even where resources for subsequent site management were likely unavailable. Therefore, attempts to promote this target were largely ineffective Bridgewater Tickner et al. The contributions of IOPs were therefore considerable and can be seen effectively to be leading the Parties, and responsible for both the prolix strategic plan and the increase in number of decisions and time spent at COP VIII Resolution VIII.

This showed the difficulties inherent in a strategic plan for the convention, i. This framework modernised the approach of the plan and reduced its complexity. Besides the three goals that dealt with conservation and wise use of wetlands and water resources wise use, Ramsar sites, and international cooperation , two were identified as managing the convention implementation capacity and membership.

Standing Committee 34 established a subgroup to draft the third strategic plan — and oversee the development of a new National Report format for reporting to COP X. This formalised the involvement of the IOPs in the drafting process but also made for a tighter editorial team. The other important aspect was linking the national report format with the strategic plan, bringing planning and reporting tools together.

Standing Committee 41 determined that assessments of the strategic plan will be included in the national report format, rather than by using a parallel process of mid-term review. In part, this was due to Parties increasingly understanding that implementation of the convention was possible only through national actions.

This plan had more effective input from Parties in its development than the first two plans and reinforced that IOPs could be more active in working with government officials at national, state, and local levels. The plan further noted the desirability for national environmental governance to shift from sectoral, demand-driven, approaches to an ecosystem approach to policy and decision-making for wetlands and water.

In the run-up to COP XII the Standing Committee established a working group to prepare a fourth strategic plan for the period of two triennia — Standing Committee requested a shorter, simpler, and more engaging plan, using language and consultation formats, like the other multilateral environmental agreements.

However, such calls fell on deaf ears, and the fourth strategic plan, agreed at COP XII , reverted to the error of the second plan by becoming voluminous, with many unnecessary pages of introduction.

It does have some additional features; importantly running for nine years rather than six originally considered i. Specific indicators were identified for each of the targets with the expectation indicators will be monitored by Contracting Parties. Additionally, Standing Committee was to keep the implementation of the strategic plan under review, based on regular reports from the Secretariat, the STRP, and national reports.

To provide effective support for improved implementation of the convention, a range of Ramsar Regional Initiatives RRIs have been developed since COP 4 , where particular Parties or groups of Parties wished to show leadership, but in a somewhat ad hoc fashion.

Regional initiatives allow ready involvement in implementation of the convention of all stakeholders, including all relevant ministries, intergovernmental bodies, IOPs, other NGOs, academia, local communities, and economic actors, while allowing focus on local specificities. MedWet brings together 27 Mediterranean and peri-Mediterranean countries that are convention Parties.

Resolution XIII. The second strategic plan suggested it would assist the convention contribute to inter alia : the fourth World Water Forum in Mexico and implementation of decisions from the thirteenth meeting of the Commission on Sustainable Development policies on water and sanitation. This concretised part of Resolution VI. This emphasis on water issues continues the increasing importance water was playing in the convention discussions. By COP X it had effectively become a wetlands and water, not a wetlands and waterfowl convention.

This emphasis on the centrality of water issues further promoted drift in the convention, with a wetlands and water publication Russi et al. Significantly, Russi et al. Resolution XI. Also mentioned in Resolution XI. The plan identified 14 priority areas of significance for the convention to follow. Although institutional drift is not mentioned as such, in effect that is what will be reviewed. Table 1 shows the extent to which there has been a decline in attention given to site-related matters, and a rise in a wide range of peripheral issues, often disappearing after discussion at only one or two COPs.

This shows the extent to which the convention has suffered from drift, aided by strategic plans which add more and more issues, instead of refining and retaining the original focus of the convention. The review process currently in train will consider changes needed to craft a fifth strategic plan envisaged from What the review of the fourth strategic plan is not attempting, but perhaps should, is a review of interactions between the key actors.

Yet currently the IUCN Global Water Programme on its web microsite has no reference to the convention, rather promoting its own potential for action and knowledge on sustainable water resource management. The WWF is also complicated in that in-country branches of the organisation often have quite different emphases from the International Office, the traditional focal point for Ramsar links.

Having driven hard for rapid increase in number and size of Ramsar sites it seems as though the WWF is no longer especially interested in the convention, although retaining its IOP status. Wetlands International has a greater stake in the convention. There had been increasing unease amongst Contracting Parties concerning this outsourcing, and so, in , the Ramsar Sites Information Service reverted to being hosted by the Secretariat.

This newly constructed system enabled Contracting Parties to designate and update Sites online—a considerable improvement. Wetlands International still features the convention on its website, especially noting the importance of the International Waterbird Census IWC. This census is one of the longest running citizen-science global projects.

It covers both threatened and non-threatened waterbird species. Given the original importance of waterfowl in convention discussions Birdlife International itself has been involved with the convention since assisting its birth.

In recent years however, Birdlife International has moved to a broader canvas. Information on Ramsar on the website is dated mostly around — , and in recent times it has tended to support more the Convention on Migratory Species, and in and the successful efforts by China and the Republic of Korea, to have a significant coastal area listed as World Heritage. In working with Ramsar, WWT has brought two important initiatives.

The first relates to the developing CEPA programme of the convention—especially through local wetland centres at Ramsar sites.

This is the Wetland Link International initiative WLI that aims to improve the role of its over member wetland centres in changing attitudes, promoting good wetland conservation, and educating and informing local stakeholders and visitors.

This initiative has been valuable in uniting the vast number of local wetland NGOs. As can be seen from the foregoing, the current linkage between IOPs and the convention activities, and between the IOPs themselves, have changed markedly from the early years of the convention.

While IOPs have had an important role in shaping the evolution and success or otherwise of the convention, there are many external bodies that also play key roles in shaping convention work. Yet the effectiveness of all 25 is open to question, and in some cases is plainly window-dressing. This status is exacerbated by not being a UN convention. Despite this impressive set of actors, there are important actors missing. Yet the convention has not fully realised its potential in this area, despite a long history of attempting to create better relationships with IPLCs.

In at COP 6, Recommendation 6. A particularly poignant response to this came at COP VII in Costa Rica, where during the meeting representatives of IPLCs in Mesoamerica laboured daily on an enormous painting showing the values of wetlands in the region, artistically based upon the fishing culture of the Solentiname archipelago in the southeast of Lago de Nicaragua.

At the conclusion of the COP, the artists presented their painting and their "People's Declaration on Wetlands" during the closing ceremonies. Create and apply all programs in accordance with the reality experienced by each one of our IPLC communities;.

Increase awareness in populations and provide training and incentives for the sustainable use of wetlands resources;. Promote community self-help in order to seek problem-solving choices based on their own reality.

An informal Ramsar Culture Network, including but not limited to IPLC involvement, has existed for several years but failed to make progress. While this does indeed note IPLC interaction with wetlands, it is done through the prism of climate change, and effectively continues the marginalisation of IPLC roles in wetland management. A report for the convention Oviedo and Ali should help focus attention and it is to be hoped COP XIV will tackle this issue more effectively and proactively.

Debates provoked by suggestions that wetlands should be accorded rights Davies et al. She described several ways in which the IOPs can add value in all this work by bringing their experience from programmes and supporting effective policy development. This showed the influence IOPs were hoping to exert in the third strategic plan, and the extent to which IOPs were moving from science-based nature conservation organisations to ones advocating for sustainable development and poverty reduction.

This strategic plan was agreed as the world accepted the Sustainable Development Goals and the Agenda. Our historical account of the evolution of the Ramsar Convention offers a basis on which a new theoretical framework for treaty evolution could be developed. In explaining treaty evolution, it is then important to look beyond the politics of member states, and to the constellation of actors and interests in and around the convention.

As the foregoing text suggests, for the Ramsar Convention this is a complex picture. Figure 2 attempts to illustrate how these different components of the convention have contributed to its current state. An element omitted is that of interaction between Secretariat and International Organisation Partners. Such interactions do take place informally, as well as more formally through Contracting Parties. What is important to note is that these internal and external actors themselves evolve, which in turn affect the evolutionary dynamics of a treaty.

We suggest that such co-evolutionary dynamics may explain institutional drifting or maladaptation of a treaty, giving an appearance of success yet drifting to failure. In the case of the Ramsar Convention, two key conditions for institutional drifting we identified are: 1 its unique situation as a non-UN convention, which served as a significant blockage to the convention playing a fully complete and competitive global role; and 2 the increasing number of conventions dealing with biodiversity issues, which forced the Ramsar Convention to seek different roles in an increasingly competitive institutional landscape.

To remedy this drifting, Bridgewater and Kim alluded to the need to use the UN Sustainable Development Goals to realign convention thinking. Emphasising a broader wetscape approach, wetlands in the broader landscape matrix is another profitable area for the convention into the future see also Tickner et al. This suggests a profitable link to the UNFCCC where the role of wetlands needs highlighting to balance the hegemony of forests as the nature-based solution to mitigate climate change.

As nature-based solutions, through conservation and wise use wetlands and their contributions to people Pascual et al. Embracing these ideas, but with a strong focus on returning to the convention origins—the need for better global conservation of feeding and breeding spaces for waterbird species, may be the most viable path for the next 50 years. Yet these flyway agreements have become effectively outside the purview of the convention.

Future cooperative joint arrangements between flyway agreements, the Convention on Migratory Species, the Convention on Biological Diversity and Ramsar would seem to have potential for solving many of these issues. While all conventions suffer from drift and mission creep, in the case of the Ramsar Convention we assert the most viable future lies in returning to its origins, while engaging in novel issues of the twenty-first century where they can improve the lot of migratory waterfowl.

For example, combining a focus on blue carbon and the conservation of coastal site for breeding and feeding is an obvious direction of travel.

With such a vision, the imperative for the next decade would be to arrest institutional drift, return to the original purposes of the convention in the context of twenty-first century knowledge, and succeed in joining the UN system. The differing percentages in these assessments relate to the period under consideration—but both present the same dramatic decline of wetland area, accompanied by decreasing quality of much of the remaining wetlands.

The number of the COPs and their recommendations and resolutions follows that of the convention, i. Int Organ — Article Google Scholar.

In: Biermann F, Kim RE eds Architectures of earth system governance: institutional complexity and structural transformation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 1— Chapter Google Scholar. Book Google Scholar. Bodansky D, Diringer E The evolution of multilateral regimes: implications for climate change.

Bodansky D, Rajamani L The evolution and governance architecture of the climate change regime. Google Scholar. Bot J Linn Soc — Bridgewater P Comment on Davies et al. Nat Ecol Evol — Article PubMed Google Scholar. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Mar Freshw Res. Ferrajolo O State obligations and non-compliance in the ramsar system.

J Int Wildl Law Policy. J Int Wildl Law Policy — Gehring T Treaty-making and treaty evolution.