How can a regional monitoring help the Ramsar Convention to be effective ?
Those countries who have signed the Ramsar Convention are convinced that the services and products provided by wetland ecosystems are essential for a sustainable future of our societies. Many of our cultural values are also linked to wetlands.
In order to know if our activities bring us closer to the goal of protection, wise use and restoration, we need indicators to tell us if we are moving into the right direction? Information on wetland status and trends is important to make good decisions for our future.
In particular, how the Mediterranean Wetlands Observatory with its specific geographical cross-national, regional and local levels has succeeded in this mission since its creation ?
During its initial years, the MWO has undertaken well-structured and focused research and development, partnership and network building and analysis of situations and trends. The Mediterranean region is faced with many fundamental challenges (demography, climate change, resource depletion). Wetland ecosystems and their services are at the heart of many sustainable solutions. The analysis and the proposals of the MWO can now form a basis for well-informed decisions and concrete actions to be taken.
In terms of visibility and communication strategy what are, in your opinion, the strategical lines to take into account to foster the role and impact of such a tool ?
The symposium on water and wetlands in the Mediterranean (Agadir, 6-8 February 2012) will hopefully mark the start of a major phase of outreach, and be a first opportunity to share our analysis and proposals with a wider audience. Many people still tend to ignore our dependence on wetland ecosystem services. Having a robust tool will help us to inform and to convince them. We need to understand and to speak their language, to engage with them and to develop together convincing solutions. We are just at the beginning of a promising and rewarding adventure.