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| Belarus
joins CMS |
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 Belarus
will become the 84th Party on 1 September 2003. The Eastern
European landlocked state borders Latvia, Lithuania, Poland,
Ukraine, which are already Parties to CMS, and the Russian
Federation.
Belarus has ratified the following environment-related treaties:
the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Convention
on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna
and Flora (CITES), the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the United Nations Convention
to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the Ramsar Convention on
Wetlands and the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air
Pollution (LRTAP). In addition, it has signed the Law of the
Sea Convention. Belarus has taken the lead-management in preparing
the Memorandum of Understanding concerning Conservation Measures
for the Aquatic Warbler. An international meeting held in
Minsk was hosted by Belarus in April 2003 to negotiate and
adopt this Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Belarus has
become a signatory State to the MOU, to which it is a Range
State.
The flatness of Belarusian terrain and its 11,000 lakes have
their origin in glacial scouring. Its wide spread marshland
represents an ideal habitat to numerous species of waterbirds.
Up to 90 species of migratory waterbirds and more than ten
bat species are reported for Belarus. The Aquatic warbler
(Acrocephalus paludicola), the Ferruginous duck (Aythya nyroca)
and the Lesser White-fronted goose (Anser erythropus), listed
on both CMS appendices, are designated for concerted actions.
The territory of Belarus is situated along the important flyway
linking Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia with East
Africa through the Bosphorous and the Eastern Mediterranean. |
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