It is a very great pleasure to receive, on behalf of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, this copy of the EAC's important and impressive volume on The Heritage Management of Wetlands .
Parties also commit to working together on a range of international cooperative activities.
The Ramsar Convention owes its origins in the 1960s to increasing recognition and concern of the urgent need to safeguard wetland habitats and the species, notably waterbirds, that depend upon them. But despite increasing awareness worldwide of the vital values and functions of wetlands, this challenge remains very great and likely to become even greater in many parts of the world in the face of accelerating desertification and increasing demand for shared water resources. Put at its simplest, we all need our wetlands to stay wet, so maintaining the hydrological integrity of wetlands is critical to our common objectives. Decision-makers and managers of the natural and of the cultural features of wetlands are, however, not always as fully aware as they could be of the benefits of working together to strengthen the safeguarding of this heritage. The Ramsar Convention has long recognised the vital importance of people and their wetland heritage in all its forms as essential for achieving the sustainable management of wetlands.