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The Ramsar Convention (or the Convention on Wetlands), signed in 1971, was one of the first international conservation agreements, promoting global wise use of wetlands. It has three primary objectives: national designation and management of wetlands of international importance; general wise use of wetlands; and international cooperation. We examined lessons learnt for improving wetland conservation after Ramsar’s nearly five decades of operation. The number of wetlands in the Ramsar Site Network has grown over time (2,391 Ramsar Sites, 2.5 million km2, as at 2020-06-09) but unevenly around the world, with decreasing rate of growth in recent decades. Ramsar Sites are concentrated in countries with a high Gross Domestic Product and human pressure (e.g., western Europe) but, in contrast, Ramsar Sites with the largest wetland extent are in central-west Africa and South America. We identified three key challenges for improving effectiveness of the Ramsar Site Network: increasing number of sites and wetland area, improved representation (functional, geographical and biological); and effective management and reporting. Increasing the number of sites and area in the Ramsar network could benefit from targets, implemented at national scales. Knowledge of representativeness is inadequate, requiring analyses of functional ecotypes, geographical and biological representativeness. Finally, most countries have inadequate management planning and reporting on the ecological character of their Ramsar Sites, requiring more focused attention on a vision and objectives, with regular reporting of key indicators to guide management. There are increasing opportunities to rigorously track ecological character, utilizing new tools and available indicators (e.g., remote sensing). It is critical that the world protect its wetlands, with an effective Ramsar Convention or the Convention on Wetlands at the core.

Australia's waterbirds are mostly nomadic, capitalising on highly variable aquatic resources in the arid interior (70% of the continent) for feeding and breeding. Waterbirds, unlike most aquatic organisms, can move between catchments, exploiting habitat wherever it occurs. In Australia, patterns of resource availability for waterbirds are mostly pulsed with peaks of productivity, coinciding with flooding and differing in time and space, affecting individuals, species and functional groups of waterbirds. Australian waterbirds are no different from waterbirds elsewhere, with their behaviour reflecting broad-scale resource availability. They respond to changing patterns of resource distribution, with rapid movements at spatial and temporal scales commensurate with the dynamics of the resource. The most serious conservation threat to waterbirds is a bottleneck in resource availability, leading to population declines, increasingly forced by anthropogenic impacts. River regulation and other threats (e.g. draining) reduce the availability of wetland habitat and decrease the probability of viable resource patches. It is axiomatic that waterbirds need water and such population bottlenecks may occur when the availability of water across the continent is limited. The rehabilitation of regulated rivers with environmental flows and protection of naturally flowing rivers in the arid region are essential for long-term sustainability of Australia's waterbird populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We can use aerial surveys of waterbirds to identify high-conservation-value wetlands, estimate species' abundance and track changes in wetland condition. Two major approaches prevail. Transects to estimate a few species (1–20, often ducks) are predominantly used in North America and counts of entire waterbird assemblages on discrete wetlands are favoured in Australia. Such differences reflect wetland type, discrete (whole count) and continuous (transect) sampling, different objectives and history. There are few continuous large-scale aerial surveys of waterbirds, despite cost efficiencies and effectiveness. We review the eastern Australian waterbird survey that samples about one-third of the continent (2.697million km2). Each October, during 1983–2007, all waterbirds were estimated on an average of 811 wetlands, within ten 30-km-wide survey bands, separately extending across latitudes from the east coast to central Australia. The survey has demonstrated the importance of arid wetlands for waterbirds and provided management data on distribution, abundance and breeding of waterbirds. Most significantly, long-term temporal data for individual wetlands provided strong evidence for the impacts of water resource development (dam building, diversion of water). These data have influenced wildlife management, river rehabilitation and restoration policies at a national scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]