ST. PAUL’S POND TO BECOME A NEW RAMSAR SITE
(Posted 16th June 2019)
Reunion has applied to RAMSAR to recognize the St. Paul’s Pond as a new RAMSAR site.
The Chairman of the Advisory Committee of the National Nature Reserve Étang de Saint-Paul and the Ramsar Project Monitoring Committee and the President of the Régie RNNESP welcomed in Réunion the Ramsar delegation composed of an expert from the Association Ramsar France, the National Museum of Natural History and the Ministry of Ecology) on April 04th to convince them of the need to label St. Paul’s Pond. The team came to appraise the file locally and to meet the various stakeholders named in the file, among them the commune of Saint-Paul, the Territory of the West Coast (TCO), the National Forestry Office (ONF) and the Federation of Fisheries, among others.
The Ministry of Ecological and Solidarity Transition was represented by DEAL.
This certification, which is part of a national and international approach to the preservation of wetlands, is an asset for the international influence, eco-tourism and responsible and sustainable economic development of the city of Saint-Paul.
Becoming Ramsar International Importance Site, will testify treasures of biodiversity that shelters the Pond Saint-Paul and the adjacent ravines , inscribed in the Ramsar perimeter covering some 485 hectares. It would allow the Saint-Paul Pond to become the figurehead of the Reunion wetlands.
If the answer for recognition is positive, Pond St. Paul will become the 49 th French site and the 12th in French overseas regions, registered in the list of Ramsar sites of international importance and will be recognized at the same level as the Little Camargue in the south of France, the Bay of Somme, the bay of Mont Saint-Michel or the salt marshes of Guérande. In the Indian Ocean, the only French sites are the Vasière des Badamiers in Mayotte, the Europa Island in the Mozambique Channel and the French Southern Territories. The neighboring countries of Mauritius, Seychelles and Comoros have three sites each classified and Madagascar has twenty.
