Dwight Peck's personal Web site

Ramsar and Dwight

Mr Peck, seriously unemployed, wandered into the Ramsar Bureau (i.e., the secretariat of the Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar, Iran, 1971)) in January 1993 with the recommendation of a friend then working there, and got hired on for various writing assignments at an hourly pay rate (to supplement the Swiss unemployment benefits).

Cluttered office, 1999.

The Convention on Wetlands is an intergovernmental treaty that provides the framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands and their resources, for the benefit of present and future human generations. Some 154 nations are presently Contracting Parties to the Convention, and they have designated more than 1,640 wetlands (totaling more than 146 million hectares) for protection and sustainable management under the Convention's List of Wetlands of International Importance. [That's our blurb.]

The Ramsar, Swiss, and IUCN flags snapping bravely in the breeze (the IUCN flag says "UICN" instead of "IUCN" because the French have got things all the wrong way round again).

Rapporteur, 2000.

Mr Dwight was snapped up on a 2/3-time contract in June 1993 (which he supplemented with a two-year term as Librarian of the American Library of Geneva, also at 2/3-time -- you do the math.) and began rapporteuring, amongst other things, like faxing, photocopying, windowwashing, cleaning the loos, etc.

In July 1995, Mr Peck joined Ramsar full-time and became the Bureau's rapporteur and, under various titles, its information officer. Here he can be seen brooding second-from-left on the podium at the 6th meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties to the Convention, Brisbane, Australia, in 1996.

In early 1996, whilst reporting on COP6 (above), he set up the Convention's Web site and commenced spending most of his work time and all of his free time creating some 23,000 Web pages and images, updated daily, all in aid of wetlands and international cooperation. Then in 2004 the silly new boss arrived, with the sound of dishware falling out of the kitchen cabinet, and now Mr Peck does his eight hours for his paycheck and awaits a change of regime [which, happily, occurred in July 2007].

Documents Night, 1999! In every 10-day triennial meeting of the Conference of the Parties, one day late in the proceedings is left free for field excursions for the government delegates, so that the secretariat can prepare and distribute the final drafts of all the documents to be adopted in the final plenary sessions. Here, at 2 a.m. in San José, Costa Rica, some of the late night Bureau staff (including the former Secretary General, right) rejoice at having finished stuffing mailboxes and prepare to rise at dawn the next day.

For COP7, San José 1999, Mr Peck was only called upon to rapporteur the two extraordinary political sessions (Iran/Syria vs Israel!) and otherwise served as head of documentation. (Here's a link to more pix of the COP7 documentation team on the Ramsar Web site.) 

Rapporteuring can be an intense experience sometimes (as above), except when the delegates from certain countries (you all know who they are) are speaking, when we can write it all out before they even open their mouths and then smile in a benign fashion as they turn their mental tape recorders on and we just have to wait them out. This is the 24th meeting of the Standing Committee, October 1999. Bill Phillips of Australia is the Deputy Secretary General.

At the 9th meeting of the Convention's expert subsidiary body, the Scientific and Technical Review Panel (STRP), July 2000, Herr Peck glares uncompromisingly at Jan Pokorny of the Czech Republic, whilst Nick Davidson of Wetlands International in The Netherlands (but now, since the year 2001, Mr Peck's sub-boss as Deputy Secretary General of the Convention) eavesdrops shamelessly.

The 25th meeting of the Standing Committee, December 2000; forgot his tie.

Similarly, SC25, December 2000 -- from left: the rapporteur; Dr Nick Davidson, Deputy Secretary General; Delmar Blasco, Secretary General; Stephen Hunter (Australia), chair of the Standing Committee.

SC26, December 2001

Colleague Sandra guarding the Documentation Centre, COP8, Valencia, Spain, November 2002. (More)

At present, Mr Peck's role in the secretariat includes Information Officer (inquiries, press, newsletters, listserves, etc.), Webmaster, rapporteur for major meetings, documentalist and electronic archivist, editor for formal documents in English and formatter for formal documents in the three Ramsar languages (English, French, and Spanish), computer tech support, corporate memory, and general dogsbody.

IUCN HQ, home of the Ramsar Bureau, Gland, Switzerland, near the shores of Lac Léman (Lake Geneva).

Time now to go to the fridge and pull out a couple of those old frozen daiquiri mixes, pop them open and line them up in front of your monitor, and then, suitably fortified, dial in to the Ramsar Web site for all the latest news and documents on international policy efforts to assure that the world's wetlands and their vast resources will be available to our children and grandchildren. And please don't listen to George W. and his co-investors about anything to do with our grandchildren's environment.

Feedback and suggestions are welcome if positive, resented if negative, . All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 11 April 2001, updated 10 June 2008.