Bonn / Nairobi, 30 July 2009 - Elizabeth Maruma Mrema has been appointed Officer in Charge of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) by Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) as of 27 July 2009. In addition, Mr. Steiner has appointed Bert Lenten, the current Executive Secretary of the African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement (AEWA) Secretariat as Acting Deputy Executive Secretary of CMS, effective since 2 July 2009.

Ms. Mrema succeeds Rob Hepworth, who had served as Executive Secretary of CMS for over 4 years, while Mr. Lenten has taken over from Lahcen El Kabiri who was recently transferred to Abu Dhabi to be the head of the new CMS Office dealing with the Agreements on birds of prey and dugongs.

The new management arrangements for the CMS Secretariat have been put in place by the Executive Director of UNEP to ensure a smooth transition until the recruitment process for the new Executive Secretary and the Deputy Executive Secretary position are completed.

The CMS Secretariat staff is looking forward to working with both Ms. Mrema and Mr. Lenten as they lead the CMS Secretariat in the coming months.

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Officer in Charge of CMS

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, a national of the United Republic of Tanzania, has many years of experience as a career diplomat and senior environmental lawyer at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) with a particular focus on international environmental law, compliance and enforcement of environmental conventions as well as international environmental negotiations.

She is currently a Principal Legal Officer in UNEP and since 2007, she had been the Chief of the Biodiversity and Land Law and Governance Unit in the UNEP-Division of Environmental Law and Conventions (DELC) as well as the overall Coordinator of € 21.45 million Project on Capacity Building for the Implementation of MEAs in the African, Caribbean and Pacific Countries (ACP).

In 2007, Ms Mrema was the recipient of the first ever UNEP-wide Best Manager of the Year Award, which she received in the context of the UNEP Baobab Staff Awards programme initiated by the Executive Director of UNEP. The "Baobab Awards" were established in 2007 to recognize and reward exceptional performance and dedication to achieving the goals of UNEP and gives UNEP staff members the opportunity to express their appreciation for the achievements of their colleagues. It takes its name after the Baobab Tree, which symbolizes strength, power and resilience.

From 2005 - 2007 she was Senior Legal Officer and Chief of the Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) Support and Cooperation at UNEP- DELC, where she was also responsible for the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) and its related Agreements. As the head of the UNEP-DELC Biodiversity related MEAs, Ms. Mrema has been dealing with a number of day-to-day activities and issues of CMS and its agreements from the UNEP headquarters perspective. Over the past two years she represented UNEP at many of the major CMS conferences and meetings of the parties of CMS-related agreements, including AEWA MOP4 (September 2008) and CMS COP9 (December 2009).

Until end of August 2005, she was the Task Manager and Coordinator of a US$ 6.5 million Project on Capacity Building for the Development and Implementation of Environmental Laws and Institutions in Africa as well as Acting Chief of the Implementation of Environmental Law Branch in the UNEP-Division of Environmental Policy Implementation (DEPI). For the four years between 2003 and 2005, she was also simultaneously responsible for the coordination and implementation of a US$ 2.5 million Project on Compliance with and Enforcement of MEAs. Between 1995 to 1999, she served as the UNEP interim secretariat for the regional 1994 Lusaka Agreement on Cooperative Enforcement Operations Directed at Illegal Trade in Wild Fauna and Flora and continued to serve as the UNEP focal point for the implementation of the Agreement.

Before joining UNEP, she worked as a lawyer and career diplomat with the Tanzanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation as the Legal Advisor for over thirteen years (1981-1994). She was a part-time Lecturer in Public International Law and Conference Diplomacy Courses at the Centre for Foreign Relations and Diplomacy in Tanzania (1986-1990). Until recently, she was also a visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Nairobi and a tutor for different environmental law topics at the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), Italy. Currently, she is one of the key organizers and lecturers at the annual UNEP-University of Geneva Certificate of Advanced Studies in Environmental Diplomacy as well as UNEP-University of Joensuu Diploma Course in International Environmental Law-Making and Diplomacy.

Ms Mrema holds an LLB (Upper Second Honors) from the University of Dar-es-Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania; LLM from the Law School at the Dalhousie University, Canada and Postgraduate Diploma in International Relations and Diplomacy (Sumna Cum Laude) from the Centre of Foreign Relations and Diplomacy in Dar-es-Salaam. She has published several articles related to international environmental law, compliance and enforcement of conventions and developed a number of environmental law and negotiation tools, handbooks and guidelines currently being used in a number of UNEP organised and other training programmes.

Bert Lenten, Acting CMS Deputy Executive Secretary

Bert Lenten, a Dutch national, is the Executive Secretary of the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA). The Agreement was developed by the Government of the Netherlands in the early nineties under the auspices of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS). Bert Lenten entered on duty as Executive Secretary of AEWA in January 1996 and has made a significant contribution to the successful development of the Agreement since then.

AEWA is the largest Agreement developed under the auspices of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) and has rapidly grown and developed into a successful and internationally recognised instrument for trans-boundary, multilateral waterbird conservation in the African-Eurasian region. Under Bert Lenten’s leadership, over half of the 119 Range States covered by the Agreement area have now joined AEWA as Contracting Parties. Furthermore, AEWA is increasingly recognised as one of the most effective instruments for flyway-scale cooperation on the conservation of migratory waterbirds across Africa and Eurasia.

In 2006, Bert Lenten also took the lead in organising the World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD) initiative in close cooperation with the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS). The global campaign devoted to celebrating migratory birds and for promoting their conservation worldwide is one of the most ambitious awareness-raising campaigns ever conducted by the AEWA Secretariat and has managed to stimulate an increasing number of events celebrated around the world each year.

Mr. Lenten has also played a leading role in the development of the UNEP-GEF African-Eurasian Flyways Project; also known as the Wings Over Wetlands (WOW) Project. This US $ 12 million project is currently in the implementation phase (for more information please see: www.wingsoverwetlands.org).

As a Dutch civil servant specialising in forestry and nature conservation, Bert worked for the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality from 1981-2000. During this period he was responsible for providing advice to private landowners on the management of forests and nature areas, for the establishment of a National Park, for the afforestation of several areas around Amsterdam, and for the development of nature and forest policies at regional level.

Bert holds a Bachelor Degree in Forestry and Nature Management.