This document is the United Kingdom's Site Supplement to the Ramsar National Report for the 7th meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties (CoP7) that was held in Costa Rica in May 1999. It fulfils a commitment made in the National Report to provide site accounts and an overview of ecological character and conservation measures for designated UK and Overseas Territories Ramsar sites prior to CoP7.

 

The Site Supplement is the culmination of a programme by the nature conservation agencies to draw together information for the standard reporting forms – Ramsar Information Sheets.

 

This report provides a summary of ecological character across UK Ramsar sites identifying in particular, conservation measures in place or proposed to address adverse factors that may be affecting the condition of sites. The UK's Ramsar National Report (available on the Internet at http://ramsar.org/cop7_nr_uk.htm) outlined a wide range of conservation measures such as agri-environment schemes, management planning and site condition monitoring which are used to secure favourable management both on sites and in the wider environment. The Ramsar National Report should also be consulted in relation to section 1 of this document. These measures alongside the activities of the UK's Ramsar Committee, the Joint Working Party, help promote the wise use of wetlands and ensure that systems are in place to monitor and report on the status of UK designated Ramsar sites.

 

This report includes a list of designated and candidate Ramsar sites in the UK, Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, known to meet the Ramsar criteria for future inclusion in the List of Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar List). Section 1 also includes a summary assessment of the current coverage of wetland habitats and associated species within the UK Ramsar site network to support targets 6.1 (a) and 6.2 (a) in the UK targets document for the Ramsar Strategic Plan 1997-2002.

 

A description of the information contained in each Ramsar site account is provided in section 3 of this document. The site accounts are presented, in alphabetical order, in sections for each of the four countries making up the UK and a separate section for sites in the Overseas Territories. A UK Ramsar sites location map and summary climate data is included in section 2 of the report.