NATIONAL REPORT ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE RAMSAR CONVENTION ON WETLANDS National Reports to be submitted to the 11th Meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties, Romania, June 2012 Please submit the completed National Report, in electronic (Microsoft Word) format, and preferably by e-mail, to the Ramsar Secretariat by 15 September 2011. National Reports should be sent to: Alexia Dufour, Regional Affairs Officer, Ramsar Secretariat (
[email protected]) National Report Format for Ramsar COP11, page 2 Introduction & background 1. This National Report Format (NRF) has been approved by the Standing Committee in Decision SC41-24 for the Ramsar Convention’s Contracting Parties to complete as their national reporting to the 11th meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties of the Convention (Bucharest, Romania, June 2012). 2. Following Standing Committee discussions at its 40th meeting in May 2009, and its Decision SC40-29, this COP11 National Report Format closely follows that used for the COP10 National Report Format, which in turn was a significantly revised and simplified format in comparison with the National Report Formats provided to previous recent COPs. 3. In addition to thus permitting continuity of reporting and implementation progress analyses by ensuring that indicator questions are as far as possible consistent with previous NRFs (and especially the COP10 NRF), this COP11 NRF is structured in terms of the Goals and Strategies of the 2009-2015 Ramsar Strategic Plan adopted at COP10 as Resolution X.1, and the indicators