GTOS at Ramsar

4 November 2005

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GTOS side event at the COP-9 of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands

The GTOS Secretariat has the pleasure to announce that it will host an official side event at the 9th Meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (Kampala, Uganda, 8-15 November 2005). The side-event “Building Bridges Between Observing System and International Conventions in Coastal Areas” will take place in the Sheena Meeting Room of the Speke Resort Munyonyo on Wednesday 9 November (13:15-14:45).

The side event will provide an opportunity to discuss the contribution of observing systems to Environment-Related International Conventions with respect to their data and information requirements for both implementation of targets and reporting activities. Such issues will be analyzed with a specific focus on coastal areas, taking into account the work of the Coastal-GTOS Initiative (C-GTOS) to detect, assess and predict global and large-scale regional change associated with land-based, wetland and freshwater ecosystem along the coast.

The agenda includes presentations covering perspectives on synergies between observing systems and international conventions from a wide variety of institutions, such as the Mediterranean Wetlands Initiative (MedWet), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) AfriCover project, and the FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment (FAO/FRA). The side event will be opened by Dr Peter Bridgewater, Secretary General of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, introducing the upcoming Memorandum of Cooperation to be signed between GTOS and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands during the upcoming GTOS Steering Committee (FAO Headquarters, Rome, Italy, 25-27 January 2006). In addition, GTOS is pleased to announce that the official release of new findings from a global mangrove assessment carried out by FAO in collaboration with specialists throughout the world will take place during the side event.

Information on GTOS and related initiatives (e.g. GLCN, AfriCover) will be available for the participants. Additionally, FAO and GTOS staff will be available for further discussion after the presentations. Please note that the working language of the side event will be English.

Useful links

1. Invitation-flier
2. Agenda
3. Coastal GTOS strategic design and phase 1 implementation Plan
4. Coastal Module in TEMS
5. FAO Mangrove website

Acknowledgements

1. Africover
2. Cooperazione Italiana
3. Convention on Biological Diversity
4. FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment
5. FAO Sustainable Development Department
6. MedWet
7. The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands

© FAO   ::   Global Terrestrial Observing System - GTOS   ::   4 November 2005