Today a meeting of about 2,000 representatives from 165 countries at the Ramsar Convention in South Korea passed a resolution to recognise the importance of promoting international cooperation for the conservation of migratory waterbirds and their habitats in all flyways, this is nowhere more important in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway.
“Waterbird populations around the world are continuing to decline as a result of the loss and degradation of wetland habitats and their unsustainable exploitation”, said BirdLife’s Head of Conservation, Richard Grimmett. “This resolution recognises the crucial fact that conserving the world’s waterbirds is an international challenge. Only by working together along flyways can we effectively conserve our precious migratory birds”.
‘’The Ramsar Resolution on Flyways is really significant. No country can act alone to protect migratory waterbirds. If we don’t collaborate internationally we will push more and more migratory waterbirds to the brink of extinction. We must protect their habitats, especially tidal flats, otherwise species like Critically Endangered Spoon-billed Sandpiper Eurynorhynchus pygmeus and Great Knot Calidris tenuirostris are doomed in the East Asian - Australasian Flyway.’’ said Alison Russell-French, President of Birds Australia (BirdLife in Australia).
The Resolution calls for more reporting on the state of the world’s waterbirds to all biodiversity Conventions.
Representatives at the conference used the agreement to encourage Contracting Parties to support and participate in international initiatives, plans and programmes for the conservation of migratory waterbirds and their habitats, and urge them to identify and designate important wetlands on migratory flyways as Ramsar sites and improve their management.
The resolutions can be downloaded from the Ramsar website