Conferences & Events: Ramsar COP8

Ramsar COP 8: Valencia, Spain, 18 - 26 November 2002

The theme for the 8th Conference of the Contracting Parties (COP8) to the Ramsar Convention was "Wetlands: water, life and culture".

WWF called on Contracting Parties to redouble their efforts to systematically conserve wetlands, including the designation of more Ramsar sites to conserve more than 250 million hectares through the List of Wetlands of International Importance by 2010.

A week of progress
If you drink water, the Ramsar Convention on wetlands concerns you. The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands is the only environmental treaty for a particular ecosystem. Since it was signed in 1971, the Convention's purview extended from wise use of wetlands to protect waterbird habitat and COP8 was a particularly defining point: beyond saving bird habitats, this Conference tackled tough issues such as dams and water allocation.

Among the highlights
India and Pakistan made separate announcements to protect the border area Rann of Kutch. Covering nearly 2 million hectares, the Rann of Kutch ecoregion is home to flamingos, and is an important source of shrimp farming for hundreds of communities.

On closing day, twenty countries made consecutive pledges to protect wetlands for example, Algeria, Nigeria, China, Cuba and Colombia.

Culture was one of the conference themes and wetlands in mountain areas are culturally significant, for example, in La Cocha, Colombia. Moreover, increased protection of mountain wetlands was also embraced for their role in groundwater recharge and maintenance of water tables.

By advising countries to use all information in the World Commission on Dams report, the Convention will ensure that plans to protect wetlands will have to meet the highest sustainability standards to ward off destructive development schemes such as inappropriate dam-building.