The African Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement (UNEP/AEWA) - 30 years in function

It is a great pleasure for me to congratulate the AEWA Secretariat and AEWA community on the 30th Anniversary of the Agreement. The Agreement has continued to grow over years in geographical scope and effectiveness, as reflected in the increasing number of actions, working groups, and processes. It was certainly not foreseen on this scale when we signed the Final Act on 16 June 1995 in the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague. However, this was of course the clear wish of the ‘founding fathers’ during the many preparatory meetings, in many countries, in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Those were the days that the time was ripe to establish international conservation agreements with the Biodiversity Convention (CBD) as the largest but in my opinion: small is beautiful and so is AEWA!

In relation to international treaties in general, the international social environment has changed in these last decades, and there are major compliance issues with not only international conservation treaties but also those related to human rights and sovereignty. In such a current context, we have to ‘fight’ to keep the small ones alive.  The effectiveness – in terms of conservation delivery – of policy-orientated Conventions such as CBD is arguably less than more practical, earlier, Conventions such as Ramsar (which seeks to protect internationally important wetlands using measurable criteria); Bonn (seeking to protect migratory species and their migration routes and flyways); Bern (giving legal protection to many named species and their habitats); and the African (Algiers) Convention (protecting nature in general and establishing concrete large nature reserves and National Parks in Africa).

Unfortunately, despite our best efforts through CMS and AEWA, it was not possible not save the Slender-billed Curlew despite all the international activities, especially in the 1990s.  It was already too late given the very significant hunting pressure in breeding and wintering areas in the previous century and the wide-scale destruction of breeding habitats in SW Siberia - as colleague Dr. Sasha Yurlov and I noticed during our long expedition in 1997.

Yet it is still not too late for many other species, with the Spoon-billed Sandpiper in Asia being an urgent priority.  However, please notice others as well and do not start too late with concrete actions towards governments and the NGO conservation community as is undertaken with the Black-tailed Godwit.

I have written to the Dutch Vice Minster for Nature, Mr. Rummenie to strongly urge the continued substantial support to the implementation of AEWA and to co-organize the celebrations of 30th years of AEWA in November in Botswana.

Unfortunately, I myself will not be in Botswana but I hope that David Stroud and I as the Honorary Patrons will be able to deliver a forward looking statement to the MoP during the celebrations in November.

Back to the AEWA 30th anniversary website