Ecologists ask the government not to withdraw from the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands
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Scientists and environmentalists are asking the Foreign Ministry to maintain Russia’s membership in the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. The department announced the expediency of withdrawing from the agreement after the resolution adopted by the participating countries condemning the Russian Federation as an aggressor. The Ministry of Natural Resources is discussing with other departments the further participation of Russia in the agreement – at a meeting in early June, it was said, in particular, that withdrawal from it should be supported, since “migratory birds can be used for non-environmental purposes.” The Ministry of Natural Resources did not comment on the minutes of the meeting, citing its status for official use. An informed source of Kommersant explained that the convention is not administered by the UN, but by an international NPO controlled by the United States. The decision to withdraw will be made by the government, including after consultations with the scientific community. Scientists interviewed by Kommersant believe that withdrawing from the convention will deprive the Russian Federation of access to some of the scientific data and increase the risks for protected areas.
The Expert Council on Reserve Affairs turned to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov with a request to maintain Russia’s membership in the Ramsar Convention. “We are aware of the complexity of the foreign policy situation for our country today,” the letter says (Kommersant has it). “But nevertheless, we express confidence that the continued presence of the Russian Federation as a party to the Ramsar Convention fully meets the national interests of the Russia is aimed at preserving the unique ecosystems of our country.” The appeal was signed by more than 30 scientists and ecologists, including three corresponding members of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The Ramsar Convention (aka the Convention on Wetlands) was adopted in 1971 in Ramsar (Iran) to protect waterfowl migratory birds. Currently, 172 states are parties to the convention. The USSR ratified the document in 1977, Russia retains membership as the successor. In the wetlands of Russia, which are under the protection of the Ramsar Convention, there are 16 reserves, one national park, 10 federal and 22 regional reserves, one natural park and 24 natural monuments. The Expert Council on Reserve Affairs was established in January 2023. It brings together renowned scientists and experts in the field of nature conservation. The goal of the organization is to “assistance in improving” environmental legislation and “provide support to government agencies in the fight against its violations.”
The reason for the letter of the Expert Council was the meeting of the Ministry of Natural Resources on June 6. According to the protocol (Kommersant has it), the position of the Russian Foreign Ministry on the need to withdraw from the Ramsar Convention was announced there. The reason is the “anti-Russian resolution” adopted by the participating countries back in November 2022. It spoke about the “destructive impact of the aggression of the Russian Federation on the ecological situation in Ukraine”; the parties to the convention demanded “immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its armed forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.”
The minutes of the meeting contain the “position of the scientific community”: VNII “Ecology” and the Institute of Forest Science of the Russian Academy of Sciences supported the preservation of membership in the convention. The profile department of the Ministry of Natural Resources supported the position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – in particular, “due to the fact that migratory birds can be used for non-ecological purposes.” The press service of the Ministry of Natural Resources refused to comment on this topic in detail to Kommersant, saying that “some minutes of the meetings are documents for official use,” but recalled the resolution, which “calls for pressure” on the Russian Federation.
The Foreign Ministry explained to Kommersant that the Ministry of Natural Resources, on the basis of a government order dated January 27, is holding “meetings with interested federal agencies in order to develop a unified approach regarding the further participation of our country in the work of the convention on wetlands of international importance, mainly in as a habitat for waterfowl. Taking into account the official nature of the interdepartmental coordination, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs “considers any comments inappropriate.” At the same time, an informed source told Kommersant that the Ramsar Convention is administered not by the UN, but by the international NGO International Union for Conservation of Nature, whose secretariat is controlled by the United States, and that the conference of the parties to the convention is used to introduce anti-Russian narratives – an example can be considered resolution of the XIV Conference of the Parties in November 2022, calling for “taking into account the aggression of the Russian Federation and gross violations of international law”, appointing representatives of the Russian Federation “to leading positions in the bodies and working groups of the convention secretariat”.
Kommersant’s interlocutor stressed that the decision to withdraw Russia from the convention is “discussed”, but has not yet been adopted by the government. According to the source, the Russian scientific community must determine what it gets from the country’s participation in the convention. Such work is underway, but there is no conclusion yet. In an effort to “promote” the topic of Russia’s withdrawal from the Ramsar Convention, “there is an intention, without delving into the reasons and a detailed study of the situation, to introduce in the information field the thesis about the allegedly inadequate level of environmental protection in Russia and our country’s disregard for international documents on this topic,” notes the Kommersant source. “.
The meeting of the Ministry of Natural Resources on June 6 was attended by the leading researcher of the All-Russian Research Institute “Ecology” Alexei Blagovidov. According to him, participation in the convention gives Russian scientists a large amount of scientific data. In the event of a withdrawal from it at the level of bilateral agreements with each participating country, it will be impossible to have access to such an amount of data. The scientist also noted that during the meeting, officials did not decipher the argument about “the use of migratory birds for non-environmental purposes.”
The minutes of the meeting of the Ministry of Natural Resources say: if the government decides to terminate membership, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will have to “work out the possibility of obtaining the status of an observer in the Ramsar Convention by the Russian Federation.” Vsevolod Stepanitsky, a member of the Expert Council on Reserve Affairs, a former employee of the Ministry of Natural Resources, believes that observer status will not give Russia any advantages: “A representative of the Ministry of Natural Resources can simply go to the next meeting of the parties – he will sit there and listen. If circumstances permit, he will be allowed to speak, but nothing more. He is sure that without the status of a full-fledged participant in the convention over Russia, the “protective umbrella” of the international environmental agreement, thanks to which environmentalists “managed to defend territories in conflicts with businessmen and business executives, will collapse.”
The President of the Union for the Protection of Birds, Vladimir Melnikov, confirms that not all Ramsar sites in Russia are protected by a separate state nature conservation status. “The international status of Ramsar territories is sometimes the main argument for their conservation,” says the ornithologist. “Based on it, one can conduct a reasoned dialogue with nature users and look for alternative options to preserve the territories.”
The authors of the appeal to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov acknowledge that the November resolution of the conference of parties “goes beyond the convention’s mandate and creates an extremely undesirable precedent for its politicization.” Nevertheless, the Expert Council on Reserve Affairs notes that most migratory birds, whose habitats are protected by the convention, “arrive in spring to Russia from the territories of friendly states — after wintering in China, India, Iran, Azerbaijan, countries of the Middle East and Africa. That is why environmentalists believe that by withdrawing from the convention, Russia will lose “broad opportunities for cooperation with these countries.” Separately, they note that in China, “the protection of wetlands is a significant element of domestic and foreign policy.” “One of the important achievements of Xi Jinping’s policy of establishing an “ecological civilization” was the adoption of a special law on the protection of wetlands by the PRC in 2022,” the scientists give an example, adding that China is also a leader among the participants in the Ramsar Convention.
Mr. Stepanitsky fears that withdrawing from the Ramsar Convention will create a negative precedent not only for nature conservation: “Someone may want to withdraw from the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, for example, if it is so easy. Then, in general, everything can be destroyed for the sake of business.”
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