From Adoption to Implementation

As agreed during the Negotiation Meeting to adopt AEWA, the government of the Netherlands offered to provide an Interim Secretariat and to host the first AEWA Meeting of Parties. This offer was accepted with great appreciation. 

On the 1st of January 1996, the Interim Secretariat was established within the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and Fisheries of the Netherlands, and I entered on duty the very same day. The main priorities at that time were to promote the agreement and to make sure that at least seven Eurasian and seven African Range States would ratify. As soon as that would be the case, the Agreement would enter into force. 

Normally you would expect that after the successful conclusion of AEWA in 1995, the recruitment of Contracting Parties would be easy. In reality, it turned out that this was not the case. A lot of efforts had to be made to get at least seven African and seven Eurasian countries to ratify the agreement in order to bring AEWA into force. In the beginning of 1999, only one African country had acceded. However, plans were underway to organise the first MOP of AEWA back-to-back with the fourth Meeting of the Conference of Parties to CMS in November 1999 in South Africa. So six African countries were still missing to ensure that AEWA would enter into force before the start of the first AEWA MOP. If that would not have been the case, we would have had to cancel MOP1. Therefore, I decided to personally visit Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Niger and Mali to try to explain the importance of these countries ratifying the treaty before the first AEWA MOP in South Africa. A few weeks later, I went on a similar “diplomatic ratification mission” to Mauritius, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Botswana. During these visits, I met with the responsible Authorities to promote the accession to AEWA. The outcome of these missions was that on the 1st of November 1999, in total eight African countries and seven Eurasian countries had become a Contracting Party, which paved  the way to the entering into force of AEWA just five days before the opening of MOP1.

At MOP1, the decision was made to establish a permanent Secretariat to be co-located with the CMS Secretariat at their premises in Bonn , Germany, and to recruit an Executive Secretary.  Also the Budget for 2000-2002 was adopted and UNEP was requested to provide administrative services. The outcome of the recruitment process resulted in my appointment as the first Executive Secretary of AEWA on 16 July 2000.

In the AEWA Agreement Text, the establishment of the Technical Committee was foreseen. In 2000 this Committee met for the first time and thereafter annually. During these meetings, it became clear that as experts they did not feel comfortable and well placed to deal with administrative and policy-related matters. Therefore, a proposal to establish a Standing Committee for AEWA was submitted to AEWA MOP2 and adopted through Resolution 2.9. By doing so guidance on policy and administrative issues on behalf of the Meeting of Parties between sessions of MOPs was from that moment on ensured.  

As said before, promoting the Agreement was a priority in the early days, and I assume that will still continue to be the case for several years to come. Many international meetings from other Multilateral Environmental Agreement, IGO’s, NGO’s, Experts Specialist Groups, etc have been attended for that reason.

In the years from 1996 to 2011, a lot of activities have been carried out and projects implemented. It would take too much time to mention them all here, but I would like to highlight four major achievements from this time:

1.    Wings over Wetlands Project (2006-2010)
In the margins of a CMS meeting the Director of Wetland International invited the GEF CEO, the Executive Secretary of CMS and myself to discuss how GEF could support the implementation of AEWA. As a follow up on these initial talks, the document “International Implementation Priorities 2000-2004” was tabled at MOP1 and adopted through Resolution 1.4. Thereafter Wetlands International drafted a GEF proposal mainly focussing on the development of the Critical Site Network (CSN) and a Flyway Training Kit (FTK). When this proposal was submitted to the GEF Secretariat, it was approved due to the fact that AEWA Parties had endorsed this through Resolution 1.4. This multi-million dollar GEF project gave an unprecedented boost to the implementation of AEWA and led to more countries joining AEWA as a Contracting Party.

2.    World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD)
In 2005, the first outbreak of Avian Influenza (H5N1) in Europe took place. Many governments were concerned about the negative publicity migratory birds were receiving as the potential vectors of the disease in the international media. At that time, I took the lead to discuss with my colleagues of CMS to establish a CMS Taskforce on Avian Influenza and Wild Birds, which was established and made operational soon after. The idea was to provide governments with more balanced and accurate information about the role wild birds played with respect to spreading this disease. A lot of negative publicity went around, and birds were sometimes even called messengers of death. To tackle the negative publicity, World Migratory Bird Day was initiated and launched by me together with Ms Kuki Gallmann in Kenya in 2006, where we also organized the first meeting of the Avian Influenza Task Force. WMBD has since then been celebrated annually, focusing on a different conservation theme related to migratory birds each year. World Migratory Bird Day has become a successful joint AEWA/ CMS activity focussing on all migratory birds and has also expanded to include both EAAFP and EFTA as partners. Worldwide, numerous people attend WMBD celebrations organised by local partners each year.

3.    AEWA’s African Initiative
At MOP4, I tabled a proposal for AEWA to work closely with the World Heritage Convention on the conservation of the Great Rift Valley. This led to a lot of discussion and several African countries questioning why the focus was only on that region and not on the whole of Africa. At the end of the negotiation at MOP4, the African Initiative was born as laid down in Resolution 4.9. A very exciting initiative which was initially fully funded through voluntary contributions received. One of the activities has been the development of a dedicated Plan of Action for Africa. A strategic framework guiding conservation efforts, focusing on habitat protection, species monitoring, and capacity-building. The African Initiative is now actively supporting African countries to implement AEWA and I am proud that we have managed to get this off the ground during the AEWA MOP in Madagascar.

4.    Flyway Approach
When AEWA took off, the flyway approach was not commonly used. Some Species Action Plans were just covering part of the flyway. Meanwhile, it is more widely recognised that to conserve migratory birds travelling across multiple countries and continents, their conservation requires international cooperation and coordination.

Looking back at the 15 years I served as AEWA’s Executive Secretary,  I have the feeling that we really managed to get AEWA into the limelight. The fact that by that time we had 72 Contracting Parties, and had implemented numerous projects and carried out many activities shows that AEWA had really taken off. More Parties also helped to establish a solid and well-functioning Secretariat, consisting of 10 Staff members. This all made me to decide to move on to CMS to become the Deputy. 

For me, it has been a real honour and a privilege to be at helm of AEWA. I am very proud of what we have achieved as the AEWA Team. These achievements have been possible only due to the financial support provided by several countries and other donors. I would like to sincerely thank them for that and do hope they will continue to support AEWA during the years to come. 

How does the future look like?

After 30 years, the question that might come up is: “Is AEWA still needed?” I would wholeheartedly answer that question with yes! According to the 8th Conservation Status Report (CSN8), published in June 2022, 40 per cent of the AEWA populations are in decline. This should be a wakeup call for governments. The reality is that for governments often nature conservation is not a priority. AEWA Species are more and more confronted with threats such as urbanisation, intensification of agriculture, land use changes, and others. Let’s try to convince decision makers to take necessary actions to stop the decline of populations and foremost to avoid extinction of species. I really regret that during my period at AEWA the Slender-billed Curlew went extinct. This should not have happened. 

What remains is wishing AEWA a happy Birthday and all the best for the next 30 years.

Back to the AEWA 30th anniversary website