7 May 2008: Ramsar’s Secretary General, Anada Tiéga, participated in the sixteenth session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD16), which took place in at UN headquarters in New York, US, from 5-16 May 2008.

Speaking in a panel on one of the meeting’s thematic topics, drought, Tiéga discussed “Wetland management as a significant land use issue.” He observed that the Ramsar Convention encourages contracting parties and river basin authorities to ensure that wetland ecosystems are managed and restored in order to mitigate the impacts of natural phenomena such as floods, and provide resilience against drought in arid and semi-arid areas. He also stressed that wetland management can contribute to wider strategies aimed at mitigating climate change and desertification, and thus reduce the incidence or magnitude of natural phenomena induced or enhanced by such changes. [Summary of Ramsar Secretary General’s intervention]