Bonn, 09 November 2007 - The 32nd Meeting of the CMS Standing Committee took place on 8-9 November at the UN Campus in Bonn. Executive Secretary Robert Hepworth and Dr. Christiane Paulus, representing the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, welcomed the participants.

Next to the presentation of highlights of the conservation programme during the last year – seven new CMS species agreements were negotiated – there was also a special presentation on the Task Force on Avian Influenza where Parties supported a scientific and policy statement to be submitted to several MEA meetings and the IUCN conference during 2008.

During the meeting, several participants offered further support to the Convention. Saudi Arabia for example agreed to give high priority to finalising the text of the draft Houbara Bustard agreement for circulation to Range States. UNEP offered to work with the Secretariat and Parties to identify possible further co-operation with CMS at Regional Level, using the network of UNEP Regional Offices. IFAW will support the CMS Secretariat by providing a full-time officer for 12 months.

The Standing Committee members considered a paper on a Strategic Review of Flyways. It was agreed that a scientific and conservation review should be published in early 2008. For further elaboration of the policy part of this document a working group was established.

CMS announced that Cuba and Iran will access the Convention soon. This will raise the number of CMS Parties to 106, with several further accessions expected before the next COP at the end of 2008.

Bert Lenten, Executive Secretary of AEWA and Florian Keil, Communication Officer of the Wings over Wetlands Project (WOW) and AEWA's Information Officer attended the meeting and gave a short presentation on WOW and appealed for urgently needed funds for the project. Mr Lenten also informed the Standing Committee Members about the work that has been done by AEWA within the last months.

During an excursion the CMS Executive Secretary and UNEP's representative, Ivonne Higuero, introduced the first printed version of the new CMS Family Guide, or "Encyclopaedia", that can be downloaded from the CMS website (http://www.cms.int/publications/family_guide.htm).