The Ramsar Convention Manual.pdf

The Ramsar Convention Manual, 3 rd edition
National Reports and the 'National Planning Tool'
Recommendation 2.1 (1984) urged Parties to submit detailed National Reports (NRs) to the Secretariat at least six months
before each ordinary meeting of the Conference, and this tradition has continued unbroken to this day. The Ramsar Convention
enjoys the highest percentage of NRs received of all the environment-related conventions - of 113 Parties at the time of COP7 in
1999, 107 NRs were received and 3 newly-acceded Parties were exempted; of 133 Parties at the time of COP8 in 2002, 119 NRs
were received and 8 Parties that had recently joined the Convention were exempted.
The National Reports are submitted in one of the three official languages and become part of the public record. They are studied
and summarized by the Ramsar Secretariat in the form of regional overviews, which are submitted to the COP as official
working documents. The texts of the National Reports themselves are published on the Ramsar Web site, and their contents are
analyzed into a database which allows the production of statistical reports on the implementation of the Convention over a wide
range of variables.
National Reports provide:
□ a valuable overview of national experiences;
□ continuous monitoring of the implementation of the Convention;
□ a means of sharing information relating to wetland conservation measures that have been taken, any problems that may
have arisen, and appropriate solutions to such problems.
National Reports on implementation of the Convention are structured according to the current Strategic Plan and seek
information on each Party's success in progressing the Operational Objectives and their respective Actions called for in that
Plan. Each triennium, the Standing Committee adopts a "National, Planning Tool / National Report Format" to be distributed to
the Parties well in advance of each meeting of the COP - the purpose of this document is not only to facilitate reporting on past
achievements but perhaps more importantly to assist the Parties in structuring their activities within the framework of the
Strategic Plan. When the National Planning Tool is being used as foreseen by the COP, triennial national reporting becomes
much less burdensome for the Parties, requiring only a "snapshot" in time of their ongoing work.
Ordinary meetings of the Conference of the Contracting Parties
1. Cagliari, Italy, 1980
2. Groningen, Netherlands, 1984
3. Regina, Canada, 1987
4. Montreux, Switzerland, 1990
5. Kushiro, Japan, 1993
6. Brisbane, Australia, 1996
7. San Jos6, Costa Rica, 1999
8. Valencia, Spain, 2002
9. Kampala, Uganda (scheduled for 2005)
Extraordinary meetings of the Conference of the Contracting Parties
1. Paris, France, 1982
2. Regina, Canada, 1987
3.2 The Standing Committee
The Standing Committee of the Ramsar Convention is the intersessional executive body which represents the COP between its
triennial meetings, within the framework of the decisions made by the COP. The Contracting Parties that are members of the SC
are elected by each meeting of the COP to serve for the three years until the next one. The SC was established by Resolution 3.3
of the 1987 Conference of the Contracting Parties. Its tasks were first set out in the "Framework for Implementation of the
Ramsar Convention" (Resolution 5.1, 1993), but are presently defined by Resolution VII. 1 (1999):
"The Contracting Parties that have accepted to be elected as Regional Representatives on the Standing Committee shall have the
following tasks:
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