2012 Annual Report - Hunter Wetlands Centre Australia

Ecotourism & Marketing Continuedwe will continue to move towards.We have teamed up with InnerCity Winemakers and East CoastExperiences to create a great dayout and hopefully the on boardtour promoters will pick us up as apackage in the next round.Changes to our membershipstructure have taken place sinceJune 2012 in an effort to offer a moreflexible membership arrangement.Generally our membership numbersare down signficantly and oldermemembers not renewing theirmemberships. A membershipdrive will be held in 2013 throughnewsletters of associatedorganisations, through the centreand in public notices with supportfrom the Newcastle Herald.2012 saw the 10 YearAnniversary of our signing of theRamsar Agreement which was anexciting milestone. We had a smallevent with a seminar programconducted by Hunter Wetlands,Christine Prietto and Louise Duff fromWetland Care Australia followed by acelebratory cake and a group photo.I had the good fortune in Octoberto attend the Asia-Pacific Global EcoConference which was held in Cairns.The theme for the conference was‘Optimising Eco Wonders’. I washonoured to present a paper on‘Communities Benefitting fromStrategic Partnerships’. It was veryexciting to be able to present theHunter Wetlands Centre, our history,our structure, our partnerships andconsiderations for our future topeople in the ecotourism industryfrom all over Australia, Asia andas far away as Central and SouthAmerica. The conference gave me awonderful insight into the amazingthings that tourism operators aredoing - from the big guns includingVirgin who are working on usingbiodiesel in their planes to smallcommunity organisations in Ecudorwho are setting up tourism initiativesas an alternative to logging. Its a greatenvironment for learning about andfrom others successes and challenges.Our challenge for the comings yearsis to bring more visitors to the siteand to promote active use of the site.This will be done through furtherpromotion of our Segway Tours andsoon to be constructed Ropes Course.We also hope to be able to present anAboriginal Cultural event towards theend of the year and to present variousevents with Spoonbill Cafe.22Ramsar 10yr Anniversary