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WATER COOPERATION, SUSTAINABILITY AND POVERTY ERADICATIONImage: T.Salathé/RamsarImage: T.Salathé/RamsarDrainage canal in the Slovak floodplain of the Morava, part of the TransboundaryRamsar Site ‘Floodplains of the Morava-Dyje-Danube confluence’An oxbow of the Rhine in France’s Petite Camargue Alsacienne, partof the Transboundary Ramsar Site ‘Rhin supérieur’makes improvements difficult. Ramsar partners have thereforefocused on improving the situation by gathering substantive experience,working across administrative and political borders, in Europe.Many wetland ecosystems are shared between several countries, yetout of the more than 2,100 Ramsar Sites at global level, only 13 areformally declared as Transboundary Ramsar Sites so far. With theexception of a stretch of the Senegal river, shared between Senegaland Gambia, all Transboundary Ramsar Sites are situated in Europe,covering shared rivers and their floodplains, shared karst areas, extensivebogs, often spreading across the watershed divide, such as inthe Giant mountains, that divide the Polish and Czech catchmentsof major rivers such as the Elbe and Odra which take their sourcein this area. Transboundary wetland and water cooperation is moreadvanced in heavily used and densely settled floodplain areas of theRhine and Danube. Between Germany and France along the UpperRhine between Basel and Karlsruhe, and between Austria, Slovakiaand the Czech Republic in the floodplains along the Danube-Morava-Dyje confluence, between the cities of Vienna, Bratislava and Brno.In 2002, a tri-national non-governmental initiative for theMorava-Dyje floodplains, jointly launched at the end of the twentiethcentury by the expert organizations of Daphne (Slovakia),Distelverein (Austria), Veronica (Czech Republic) and WWF’sDanube-Carpathian programme, won the prestigious RamsarWetland Conservation Award. The award recognized the incentivework of the private organizations for cooperation towards sustainabledevelopment and biodiversity conservation in a formerly isolatedpolitical border area. An area that was until recently cut in twoby the ‘Iron Curtain’ with trip-wires and mine fields that separatedwestern market economies from the eastern communistplanning zone during a large period of the twentiethcentury. The scientific inventories and the ecosystemrestoration work undertaken by the award winning notfor-profitorganizations paid off and convinced the localand national authorities in the three countries to cometogether, and to formally sign a declaration of cooperationat a ceremony in the prestigious Zidlochovicecastle, a former hunting estate of the Austro-Hungarianempire, located in the midst of the periodically floodedriver meadows and ancient oak forests. Over the lastten years, the ministerial declaration was translatedinto a common, trilateral management plan for a riverfloodplain, centrally located in Europe. Regular coordinationmeetings make sure that the natural assetsand ecosystem functions of the area are maintainedand restored wherever possible. The floodplains arenow at a crossroads, due to the prospect of developmentinfrastructure projects for continent-wide rivertransport, renewable electricity production (water andwind), and main road and railway arteries for continentaltrade routes. This will present a serious challengefor maintaining and restoring sufficient natural wetlandecosystem and floodplain areas, in order that thehuman-managed ecosystems can continue to provideeffective and low-cost services, such as flood retention,water purification, drinking water supply, timber, food,biodiversity production and others.[ 251 ]