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Sanding Committee 42Gland- Switzerland

May 2011Yasaman Rajabkhah

Ramsar Regional Center, West and Central Asia

+History

The 8th Conference of Parties to Ramsar Convention held in Valencia, Spain from 18 to 26 November 2002 agreed to create a Ramsar Regional Center for Training and Research on Wetlands in Western and Central Asia in Ramsar city, in Islamic Republic of Iran, by adopting Resolution VIII.41.

+Objectives

Working to support the implementation activities of contracting parties for the effective management and conservation of wetlands, the objectives of the Center are to:

Build human capacity and engage in outreach

Promote scientific and technical cooperation and exchange of knowledge, including traditional knowledge,

Promote wise use of wetlands through research and sustainable management

Encourage accession of non contacting parties in the region.

+Activities

+1- To Develop regional training programmes to build the capacity of leading national wetland trainers and training organizations.

Training of trainers on Flyway Conservation Approach

center Sponsored Training of Trainers course of WOW project “The flyway approach to the conservation and wise use of waterbirds and wetlands”.

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A central part of the project was the development of a Flyway Training Kit which is organized in three comprehensive modules with a unique approach to learning and capacity development that has been developed through regional consultation:

1) Understanding the flyway concept,2) Applying the Flyway concept and3) Communicating the flyway concept.

+2- To provide guidance on the Ramsar CEPA programme

To conduct a CEPA workshop for Ramsar CEPA National Focal Points from West and Central Asia

Ramsar’s CEPA Programme, adopted as Resolution X.8, urges the Ramsar Secretariat to strengthen the capacity of the nominated CEPA National Focal Points (NFPs), both Government and NGO, through the provision of training and toolkits. Under the Resolution, the CEPA Focal Points are expected to play a leading role in delivering one of the key requirements of the Resolution – CEPA action planning at some level whether it be national, sub-national, catchment or local site level.

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+what participants planned to do on return to their countries

prepare a World Wetlands Day Celebration Plan

initiate the incorporation of CEPA in the National Action Plan

strengthen CEPA components in the Strategic Action Plan which is being completed now for a river basin in my country

strengthen CEPA components in the national wetland strategy, which is being updated now

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+ 3- To facilitate the translation of key Ramsar documents into Arabic and Russian

Handbook 4 : Wetland CEPA

Handbook 10: Costal Management

Handbook11: inventory, assessment and monitoring.

+ 4-To support demonstration public awareness programm

To identify Contracting Parties where the situation is appropriate to develop at least one pilot public participation project and develop a model for public participation role in decision-making.

Throughout these regions, major efforts are underway to address the crisis facing wetlands – supported by international organizations such as the Ramsar Convention, the UN bodies, GEF, World Water Council, and many international and national NGOs. These include management planning for important wetlands, and the closely related tools of IRBM (Integrated River Basin Management) and IWRM (Integrated Water Resources Management).

+ the Ramsar Regional Centre for Central and West Asia and UNDP/GEF Conservation of Iranian Wetlands Project aimed to address this issue through an international workshop at Lake Uromiyeh, Iran in October 2010. The aims of this workshop were:

To exchange best practices and lessons-learned from related international projects focused on the conservation of wetlands in SW Asia/Middle East and Mediterranean.

To establish a community of practice of the participating project leaders

To prepare a lessons-learned toolkit/manual for practitioners, based on the shared experience

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+ 5- To build up partnerships with each non contracting party in the region

5-1 To produce information materials on the advantages of accession to the Ramsar Convention

5-2- To work with the Ramsar Secretariat, national departments/ministries of environment and other appropriate bodies to promote wetland conservation and Ramsar Convention accession, to plan for -at least- a workshop in (a) non-contracting party.

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+ 6- Preparation for Ramsar Convention 40th anniversary Celebration

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+Ramsar Game

+Ramsar Game

+Study visit

Based on the request of the Pakistan Wetlands Programme and WWF Pakistan, the Ramsar Regional Center for Central and West Asia (RRC-CWA) organized a study tour to Parishan Lake Ramsar Site and Urmia Lake Ramsar Site in Iran for a group of eight high ranking government officials and representatives from Pakistan.

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+2011 Action plan

To develop and offer -maximum- three workshops for two sub regions as the response to highest priority as below: 1- 1-Capacity development workshop to progress

development of National report and further Ramsar site designation. As a workshop for NFP and site managers

1-1-1West Asia- UAE- Dubai

1-1-2 Central Asia –Kazakhstan

1-2- Training of trainers on Flyway Conservation Approach

-1-2-1 WOW project for Farsi language Countries (Iran and Afghanistan and Tajikstan)

+2011 Action plan

1.3- Wetlands inventory and data base development for West and Central Asia (Expertise on data management and inventory)

2- To support CEPA programme with Ramsar Secretariat and LAS

3- To translate Ramsar National report and requested document From contracting parties

4-National workshops for site managers and wetlands expert on management of Ramsar site

+2011 Action Plan

5-To maintain the website of the Centre www.rrc-cwa.org

5.1 To post news, preferably once a week if any available

5.2 To review and list documents that need to be on the site

5.3 To create a roster of wetland experts

5.4 To create a data base of current international wetland projects in the region.

5.5. To develop a feedback mechanism on the web site and include this feedback into the Annual Reports

5.6 To develop a web based mechanism for networking with Stakeholders

+2011 Action Plan

7- To support participation of Central and West Asian countries to the Pre- COP11 Asia Regional Meeting in 2011 ( including Non- Contracting Parties)

+ Thank you