Ramsar COP 10 Concludes in Changwon

On Tuesday, delegates met in Plenary beginning at 9:00am, hoping to debate and adopt the remaining draft resolutions. Significant progress was made during the morning and afternoon, but progress was slow on resolutions concerning the relationship of wetlands to climate change and biofuels. Guidance from the Chair and informal negotiations throughout the afternoon brought parties together, and DR 25 (wetlands and biofuels) and DR 24 (wetlands and climate change) were adopted in the late afternoon.

After all resolutions were adopted, plenary adjourned until 5:50pm, after which a closing plenary session, chaired by COP 10 President Lee Maanee, Environment Minister of the Republic of Korea, convened. During the closing plenary, Romania offered to host COP 11, Uruguay offered to host COP 12, and the Secretariat recognized Clayton Rubec of Canada as a "Wetland Person of International Significance" for his long career in the field. President Lee declared COP 10 closed at 7:06pm.

Above: During difficult negotiations in late afternoon, Deputy Secretary-General Nick Davidson conferred with Rapporteur Tim Jones and COP 10 Alternate President Kim Chan-woo, while COP 10 Vice President Patrick Van Klaveren and Secretary-General Anada Tiéga looked on.