Start Date : 16 Nov 09   End Date : 17 Nov 09 Location: Naivasha, Kenya

Nature provides human society with a vast diversity of benefits such as food, fibers, clean water, healthy soil and carbon capture. Societies’ well-being is totally dependent upon the continued flow of these “ecosystem services”. Poverty and the loss of ecosystems and biodiversity are inextricably intertwined. Main beneficiaries of many of the services of ecosystems and biodiversity are mostly the poor. The loss of biodiversity and the degradation of natural resources will severely constrain efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals.

In the past, biodiversity conservation and ecosystems protection has been viewed as the domain and responsibility of national, governments with little attention or focus on the local government level. However, more recently, it has been recognized that the role of the local level is increasingly relevant, especially in light of rapid urbanization. There is a need for guidance on managing wetlands and their biodiversity in urban and peri-urban areas, in a way that shows how existing tools can be applied most effectively.

In this light, UN-HABITAT and the Ramsar Convention organised a Workshop bringing together 30 Expert from local authorities, international organisations, research institutions as well as environmental managers from all regions of the world. The workshop adopted a broad approach that took into account not only urban and peri-urban wetlands, but also the significant interactive system between cities/towns and wetlands/watersheds that provide water and other ecosystem services to urban people. The Expert Workshop was hosted by the Kenyan Wildlife Service at their Training Institute in Naivasha, Kenya.

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