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| WSNL 1998-1 |
| Trilateral Danish-Dutch-German Wadden Sea Cooperation |
| ANNUAL REPORT 1997 |
| This Report presents a brief overview of the most important developments with regard to the trilateral Wadden Sea cooperation and the activities carried out by the Common Wadden Sea Secretariat, CWSS, in 1997. |
| TRILATERAL ISSUES |
STADE CONFERENCE At the heart of all the activities of the trilateral cooperation was the preparation and holding of the 8th Trilateral Governmental Conference on the Protection of the Wadden Sea in the city of Stade in Germany on October 22, 1997. The deliberations resulted in the adoption of the Stade Declaration, including the Trilateral Wadden Sea Plan, WSP. The Stade Declaration entails political statements on Wadden Sea matters and the WSP, the agreements on trilateral policy and management and trilateral projects and actions. They are based on the targets for cultural landscape, water and sediments and for all habitats and selected species adopted at the Leeuwarden Conference in 1994. The policy and management agreements have been developed on the basis of the targets, including a status description and assessment of the situation. This provides a rationale for the policy and management and the agreed projects and actions. The policy and management agreements includes previous decisions in particular those adopted at the Esbjerg Conference in 1991, and adapts them to the delimitation and the targets. Furthermore, the Stade Conference launched the implementation of the Trilateral Monitoring and Assessment Program, TMAP. A common package of TMAP parameters was adopted by the Ministers to be implemented, together with the associated data management, as soon as possible. A report on the contents and achievements was published in WSNL 1997-2. The preparation of the Stade Conference dominated the work of the trilateral cooperation in 1997. In addition hereto, numerous meetings/consultations were held in the three countries on the national level to discuss the draft documents and consider the input to the conference. |
WSP RELEVANT MATTERS Eutrophication Trilateral Thematic Maps OTHER TRILATERAL ISSUES Trilateral Monitoring & Assessment The Trilateral Monitoring and Assessment Group, TMAG, which is responsible for the implementation of the TMAP, had four meetings during 1997. The work focussed on the elaboration of a TMAP Manual entailing the monitoring guidelines, the installation of a trilateral data management system and the preparation of the Quality Status Report, QSR. Furthermore, a report "Implementation of the TMAP" was presented at the Stade Conference, which entailed different implementation scenarios taking into account technical and financial implications. The work for the implementation of the TMAP was carried out within the DEMOWAD project which is co-financed by the LIFE Program of the European Commission and is running from April 1995 to June 1998. |
Implementation of the TMAP A common package of TMAP parameters was adopted by the Ministers at the Stade Conference and will be implemented together with the associated data management as laid down in the report by the TMAG. Because of technical and financial restrictions, only selected parts of the parameter groups will be applied. Several parameters which were monitored only in one or two countries in regular programs, will now be monitored in all three countries using common guidelines. Furthermore, the parameter 'Contaminants in Bird Eggs' will be implemented as a completely new parameter group in regular monitoring. Data Handling The Trilateral Data Handling Group, TDG, an ad-hoc group under the TMAG, met twice in 1997 and supervised the work of the DEMOWAD data handling group. It also coordinated the work required to implement the data handling system for the DEMOWAD project at the national databases. In 1997, three persons were employed at each of the TMAP databases namely DONAR (RIKZ Haren, NL), DAWAD (NERI Roskilde, DK) and WATIS (GKSS Geesthacht, FRG, until Sept. 1997). One additional person was employed at the CWSS who coordinates the development of the trilateral data handling system. The DEMOWAD data handling group held six meetings in 1997. The prototype of a TMAP data management system was developed and installed in each country. For two selected parameter groups (breeding bird counts and metal concentrations in blue mussels), the prototype has successfully demonstrated the functionality of the trilateral data exchange and can be accessed via the Internet (http://cwss.www.de/demowad/). In all Wadden Sea countries, structures will be set up to maintain and further develop this prototype. |
Quality Status Report The QSR-Group, which is an ad-hoc TMAG subgroup and which was installed in the second half of 1995, continued its work on the preparation of the 1997 QSR. On the occasion of the Stade Conference, an Assessment Report was issued in the Wadden Sea Ecosystem Series. It concerns a preliminary assessment which will be updated in the framework of the preparation of the full QSR which is expected in the summer of 1998. Breeding and Migratory Birds Within the joint monitoring program of breeding birds, which is carried out in the framework of the TMAP, surveys were performed in selected census areas. The results of the surveys of the last five years "Breeding Birds on Census Areas 1990 until 1994" were published in autumn 1997. A meeting for the purpose of quality assurance of breeding bird monitoring was organized on Langli, Denmark. The two trilateral two-year-pilot projects in the framework of the TMAP on "Breeding success" and "Pollutants in Bird Eggs" were completed in 1997 and the results will be published in the Wadden Sea Ecosystem Series in 1998.Within the joint monitoring program of migratory birds of the TMAP, mid-winter geese and spring-tide counts are carried out annually. The results of the project on Twite, Shorelark and Snow Bunting in the Wadden Sea were published in the Wadden Sea Ecosystem Series in the autumn of 1997. Both the breeding, JMBB, and migratory bird monitoring group, JMMB, met twice in 1997 and supported the trilateral cooperation regarding the elaboration of the concerned QSR chapters, as well as, the partnerships with English Nature and Guinea Bissau.
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Seal Management Plan The Trilateral Seal Expert Group, TSEG, which was appointed according to the "Seal Management Plan 1996-2000" has the task to coordinate and supervise the implementation of monitoring activities and the assessment of the results, assess relevant research results and, as appropriate, give advice regarding management at the request of the trilateral cooperation. During coordinated flights a total of about 12,927 seals including 2,783 pups were counted in the entire Wadden Sea. The members of TSEG met once in 1997.
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Fisheries A seminar on co-management, cooperation in management to the North Sea and Wadden Sea Fisheries, was organized by The Netherlands as lead country in 1997. The Trilateral Preparation Group Fishery, TPGF, supported this seminar with technical advice and initiated activities to bring forward the implementation of the Leeuwarden Declaration concerning the investigation of shellfish stocks seaward of the islands and the research project on effects of shrimp fishery on the bottom fauna. The aim is to formulate coordinated proposals in the framework of EU programs. |
| COOPERATION WITH OTHER BODIES |
North Sea Conference As observer, the trilateral cooperation was represented by the CWSS in the preparation of the Intermediate Ministerial North Sea Meeting on ecosystem effects of fisheries which was held in March 1997 in Bergen, Norway. Oslo and Paris Conventions The trilateral cooperation has an observer status in the OSPAR Assessment and Monitoring Group, ASMO and its sub-groups. In 1997, representatives of the CWSS participated in meetings of the ASMO and the ASMO working groups the SIME where, amongst others, the Joint Assessment and Monitoring Program, JAMP, is elaborated,and the IMPACT, which deals, amongst others, with effects of fisheries, alien species and ecological quality objectives. Within the IMPACT, the CWSS elaborated an overview of developments in the ASMO area regarding impacts in the coastal margin. The overview will be used as basic material for the OSPAR holistic Quality Status Report which will be published in the year 2000.The basis for this QSR 2000 will be regional QSRs. |
The North Sea is region II and a Regional Task Team, RTT, chaired by The Netherlands, is responsible for the QSR for this region. The CWSS participates in the North Sea RTT and makes sure that the relevant information from the Wadden Sea QSR is submitted to the drafters of the North Sea QSR. Wash-Wadden Sea Collaboration At a meeting of experts and managers from the Wash and the Wadden Sea during the Stade Conference, first proposals were made regarding the 3rd work program by defining common fields of interest and joint projects. Guinea-Bissau Collaboration In the framework of the work program 1995 1997, a team of seven Guinean technicians and biologists were educated and trained by six ornithologists from the Wadden Sea in Guinea-Bissau at the beginning of 1997. The team in Guinea-Bissau now forms the basis for further ornithological studies and monitoring in Guinea-Bissau. Two Danish-German teams continued the education and training in the summer and autumn of 1997. |
| ORGANIZATIONAL ASPECTS OF THE TRILATERAL COOPERATION |
Chair Germany presided over the trilateral cooperation the last three years up to, and including, the Trilateral Governmental Wadden Sea Conference in Stade, Germany in 1997.
Senior Government Officials The Senior Government Officials meetings have been installed to discuss trilateral Wadden Sea policy and to address issues ofcommon interest in between the triennial Governmental Conferences. In 1997, four Senior Government Officials meetings were held. The officials were (situation up to 31.12.97):
Trilateral Working Group, TWG The TWG established for the preparation and elaboration of trilateral policy issues, consists, in principle, of representatives of the responsible ministries of each country and representatives of the German federal states and regional authorities in Denmark and The Netherlands. If necessary, the TWG is supplemented by representatives of other ministries and experts on special issues. The TWG was chaired by Dr. Fritz Dieterich from the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Germany. In 1997, the TWG met five times.
Expert Working Groups In 1997, nine standing/ad-hoc expert working groups supported the trilateral cooperation:
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Secretariat The execution of the duties of the CWSS is, according to the Administrative Agreement for the secretariat, supervised by a committee of representatives. In 1997 it consisted of
The CWSS is based in Wilhelmshaven, Germany. Its 1997-budget was 880,000 DM. The following persons were employed in 1997:
New Publications in 1997
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