WWN is delighted to announce that Mr. Jacky Judas was elected the new Chairperson of the World Wetland Network at our Management Committee meeting on 23rd February 2021. Jacky has been a member of the WWN Management Committee representing West Asia for the past three years, since Ramsar COP13 in Dubai. He is Manager & Scientific Adviser – Terrestrial Biodiversity with Emirates Nature-WWF. He is a biologist and ornithologist with excellent knowledge of shorebirds, and undertaking ecological studies at Wadi Waruya.
Jacky is committed to expressing the voices of the civil society / NGOs at the Ramsar Secretariat and COP, and assisting local NGOs to conserve wetlands. Some of Jacky’s goals as Chairperson include implementing the WWN Strategic Plan; increasing the number of members; assisting NGOs in their relations with Ramsar National Focal Points and the Ramsar Secretariat; and preparing for Ramsar COP14. He would also like to foster more direct relations between the Management Committee and members to support their important work on the ground.
Louise Duff (front left) and Jacky Judas (front right) at Ramsar COP13 in Dubai.
We bid farewell to Louise Duff, our outgoing Chairperson, whose excellence in administration and getting things done were much appreciated. Louise has been the Oceania Representative for ten years and Chairperson since 2016. She attended three Ramsar COPs, coordinating WWN activities at COP12 in Punta del Este, Uruguay and COP13 in Dubai, UAE. Louise also attended three Japan-Korea NGO Wetland Forums in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
Highlights for Louise included leading a side event at Ramsar COP12 on Government–NGO relations, where she presented the results of WWN’s global NGO survey. She was the first NGO representative outside the IOPs admitted to a contact group to revise a Resolution, ensuring NGOs and civil society were included as stakeholders in the Ramsar Strategic Plan. Louise provided mentoring and support for the first Youth Engaged in Wetlands side event at Ramsar COP13, and assisted WWN Asia’s representative Minoru Kashiwagi with his successful IUCN Resolution on the natural flow of water. Her fondest memories are experiences meeting local activists for study tours in the field, visiting the Nakdong River and Upo Wetlands in South Korea and the Nagoya River and Nakaikemi Wetlands in Japan.
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