Two hundred people from all over France and overseas came together on 14 and 15 November during the third seminar of Ramsar site managers. The event was organized by the “Parc Naturel Régional de Camargue”, the “Syndicat Mixte de Camargue Gardoise”, the “Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux” and the “Tour du Valat”.
The meeting aimed to:
- promote the Ramsar label and develop the network of Ramsar sites in France
- make a survey of the French wetlands, 40 years after the adoption of the Ramsar Convention,
- define the work plan of the Ramsar France association, currently being created,
- adopt the charter for the French Ramsar site management.
It was also an opportunity to pay tribute to Luc Hoffmann, founder of the Tour du Valat. Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, Minister for Ecology, Sustainable Development, Transportation and Housing, stressed the initiative of Luc Hoffmann:, “So here, in the Camargue, there were exactly 49 years to this very day that was launched, thanks to you, Mr. HOFFMANN, the first call for an international convention on wetlands, the first and still the only one to date, entirely dedicated to one type of ecosystem. This initiative has sensitized the world to the widespread destruction of wetlands, and its impact on aquatic birds, and led to the adoption of the Ramsar Convention in 1971.” France signed this convention in 1986, and designated the Camargue as its first Ramsar site, thus recognising the universal value of the Rhone delta and of the relationships that Man managed to create with Nature there.
Today, the signing of the charter together with the creation of the association Ramsar France strengthens the dynamics in the hexagon by providing a common structure for the sites and synergy between wetlands (see initiative “Ramsar France Organization” [1]).