Inf19 CMS Bulletin 18 E 0.Pdf

CMS Number 18, November - 2003 Bulletin Contents STRIKING A BALANCE BETWEEN PROJECT AND ADMINISTRATIVE WORK Editorial 1 • Goodby and hello to Dr. Gerhard Emonds 2 eporting is one of the major tasks of the CMS Species News Secretariat, as it is, I believe, of all convention • WDCS welcomes the EC proposals on cetacean 3 Rsecretariats. In addition, the Secretariat has to deal bycatch with a huge amount of administrative work in consultation • Where did Mediterranean Common dolphins go? 4 with the Convention bodies and headquarters in Nairobi, • A newly discovered population of Humpback 6 Kenya - both UNEP and UNON, the “United Nations Office in whales in the northern Gulf of Guinea Nairobi”. Clearly, the CMS Bulletin is part of the CMS • Progress report on efforts to save the Wild 8 Bactrian camel Secretariat’s reporting system. Extensive reporting had to be done last for the CMS COP 7 in September 2002 and for CMS Agreements the recent Standing Committee meeting in July 2003. • Song of the Whale sails the Mediterranean 10 Sometimes, we feel that we are getting stuck in • ACCOBAMS starts conservation, research and 12 capacity building activities administrative and reporting work with the effect that one • AEWA becomes mature 12 day, in the not too distant future, we will have nothing to • ASCOBANS: Poised for the new triennium 13 report because we have spent all our time on reporting and • EUROBATS: A successful 4th session of 14 administration. the Meeting of Parties th • ACAP receives critical 5 ratification 14 Under these circumstances you may be surprised that you • 25 years of Wadden Sea Co-operation 1978-2003 15 once again have a 32-page Bulletin in front of you. One of Memoranda the reasons for this is that the Secretariat has achieved a lot • Siberian Crane Wetlands Project: On the 16 despite all the reporting and administrative burdens as well staging grounds and ready to fly as the lack of regular staff. Another reason is that the • New IOSEA activities 17 Bulletin provides, inter alia, a forum for our allies, experts Co-operation and associates to report on conservation work for migratory • CMS - UNCCD Agreement to strengthen 18 species that CMS has been involved in, but where the major collaboration • IUCN and CMS sign Agreement to help save 19 effort is being made by others. John Hare, a former UNEP thousands of species staff member, journalist, university lecturer and author of some books, but above all Chair and CEO of the Wild Camel Meetings • CMS Scientific Council elaborates its 20 Foundation, is one of these allies and stands here for many scientific and conservation strategy others. Further to Richard P. Readings’ report in the last • Historic Western hemisphere initiative 20 Bulletin, John’s article describes his foundation’s ambitious on migratory species launched work for the Bactrian camels in Mongolia, which is being • Great Bustard meeting postponed 21 supported by CMS as well as by the Mongolian authorities. I • Waterbirds around the world: conserving 22 believe that this sort of co-operation should be the world´s major flyways acknowledged by the CMS Parties and that the CMS New Publications 23 Secretariat should be enabled to build up or strengthen New Projects such coalitions for more migratory species. CMS has good • Implementing priority actions for the 24 reasons to try helping those who endeavour implementing conservation of the high Andes flamingos CMS Agreements and MOU - or, even better, the CMS Parties • CMS supports project to identify wintering 25 could use the Action Plans to support the development and areas of the Lesser white-fronted goose implementation of projects fitting into these Action plans. New Parties The Bukhara deer is one example of our stagnating after the • A new Party to CMS: The Syrian Arab Republic 26 successful conclusion of the MOU more than a year ago. • Cote d´Ivoire joins CMS 26 There are a number of further examples where the • Belarus 84th Party to CMS 27 competent authorities of CMS Parties could show more News from the Secretariat 28 commitment to assist developing countries as partners in Calendar of Events 32 implementing of CMS instruments. Please think about it. Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) Please note! CMS has a new web site address: www.cms.int CMS Bulletin no. 18 t appears to be politically correct that a Convention Secretariat should only report about progress and success. However, CMS has undergone a rather long period in which a number of projects have stagnated. I Itake this opportunity to apologise to all colleagues and friends who may have expected more action from the Secretariat and to whom we were not even able to explain the reasons for our inaction. Nevertheless, with the dedicated work of little more than fifty percent of the regular professional staff, the Secretariat has achieved a lot in accordance with its work programme and has made considerable progress - even more than reported in this Bulletin. Moreover, CMS has been awarded a major grant by the UNEP Executive Director, who has also approved that the secretariats of CMS, AEWA, ASCOBANS and EUROBATS are to receive some additional staff members for administration and accounting in future. I take this opportunity to express, on behalf of CMS, my thanks to the ED. Thanks to the deliberations of the Standing Committee, the Secretariat was able to recruit capable temporary staff members who entered duty recently and who are helping us to cope better with our huge work programme while the recruitment of the regular professional and additional support staff members is still pending. Just a warning: if you do not hear much from the CMS Secretariat in the next months to come, some of us will have become bogged down in a couple of thousand applications for the various posts that will have eventually been advertised under the new staffing scheme of the United Nations. Next year marks the 25th Anniversary of the conclusion of CMS in Bonn, 1979. The CMS Secretariat would be most grateful for financial contributions and contributions in kind from sponsoring Parties, non-Parties and organisations to enable the preparation of some information material and the organisation of some events in 2004, mainly side events on the fringe of various big global meetings and other events, e.g. the global flyway conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, COPs of CBD and CITES and the IUCN World Conservation Congress. Arnulf Müller-Helmbrecht, Executive Secretary GOODBYE AND HELLO TO DR. GERHARD EMONDS Dr. Gerhard Emonds, a species conservation expert of international reputation, has left the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, having reached the age of retirement. Starting with carrying out a fundamental revision and modernisation of German legislation for nature conservation in the early seventies, Dr. Emonds quickly established an outstanding national and international reputation as a species conservationist. For about 35 years, he has influenced and partly determined German legislation for species conservation and contributed to global and EU legislation for species conservation. CITES, the Bern Convention, the Alpine Convention as well as the EC Bird and Habitat Directives are just a few of the treaties and laws he dealt with. He was also one of the main actors in the development of the Bonn Convention (CMS) in the seventies and conducted many consultations globally with governments and international organisations. While Dr. Emonds has remained a dedicated conservationist, he has always managed things with extreme knowledge and expertise as well as diplomacy and common sense. Throughout his professional career, he managed to resolve conflicting situations between conservationists and users. Dr. Emonds left the senior post of Director for Nature Conservation at the German Ministry for the Environment. As far as this Secretariat is informed, he will continue providing his expertise for the benefit of nature conservation in an honorary capacity. 2 CMS Bulletin no. 18 WDCS WELCOMES EC PROPOSALS ON CETACEAN BYCATCH By Ali Ross, Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society ach year, fisheries bycatch causes the deaths of many thousands of dolphins and porpoises in European and surrounding waters. In July 2003, the European ECommission put forward a proposal for a Council Regulation on cetacean bycatch (COM(2003)451 final) representing an important first step towards addressing the significant cetacean bycatch in and around EU waters. Recognising the importance that CMS, ASCOBANS and ACCOBAMS place on the issue of cetacean bycatch and building on the CMS resolution 6.2 and recommendation 7.2 on bycatch that “… bycatch remains one of the major causes of mortality of migratory species from human activities in the marine environment”, the Commission’s proposal formally acknowledges the importance of fisheries bycatch as a major threat to the conservation of cetaceans, and the inadequacy of current measures to address it. Driftnets in the Baltic are used mainly to catch salmon and can be up to 20 km long. They pose a major threat to the Harbour porpoises in the Baltic, which are already critically endangered, with the population estimated as low as 600 animals. Under the Commission’s proposal, the length of driftnets used in the Baltic Sea will be limited to 2.5 km, followed by a total phase out of these nets by 2007. The sooner this proposal can be achieved, the better the survival prospects for this struggling population of porpoises will be. In specified gillnet fisheries associated with very high levels of Harbour porpoise bycatch, including gillnet fisheries in the Baltic, the Celtic Sea, the Channel and the North Sea, the NEWS proposal would make the use of acoustic deterrent devices (pingers) compulsory. However, concerns remain over whether fishermen will use pingers effectively in practice, whether pingers will continue to deter porpoises in the longer term, and whether the widespread introduction of pinger noise will result in porpoises being displaced from important habitats, so that their use will need to be closely monitored.

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