There are only a few days left until Christmas
and new-year, and as every year one somehow tries to solve the dilemma between
the inevitable “end-of-the-year” chaos and stress in the office on the one side
and the legitimate family expectations and commitments on the other side. At
such a moment an email from the IMCG Secretariat arrives reminding you of a
Newsletter contribution. Well, I indeed promissed to write a columnn for this
issue. It has been a long time, and it is always easier to make promisses when
the deadline is somewhere far in the future.
Anyhow, I found the time to sum-up some thoughts.
Traditionally the end of the year is the time for reviewing the work that has
been done and for setting out new plans and intentions. So let’s do that.
The year 2003 was quite challenging and exciting
for IMCG. I would literally call this period the “Post-Valencia-Year.” After
celebrating the success of the GGAP resolution (Ramsar VIII/17) in Valencia in November last year, the main efforts
and activities focussed on the implementation of this document henceforth. The
GPI platform allowed several implementation projects in various corners of the
world, either directly led by IMCG or with significant IMCG participation. According
to our IMCG action plan, numerous activities concentrated in the focal area
of the African continent, where the next IMCG Congress will take place in the
autumn of 2004. Also the active co-operation with the International Peat Society
in those fields where IMCG and IPS met their joint interests developed quite
successfully. IMCG increasingly became a professional global player. This enabled
us to formulate and present our demands and ideas on numerous important meetings
and conferences. These efforts culminated recently in the Netherlands with the “Mire Meeting Marathon” (see
elsewhere in this issue) and the presentation of the Wise Use of Mires and Peatlands
book to the European Commission. The membership rose more than ten percent and
there are first tendencies to establish regional groups.
Overall, we can be satisfied with the work that has
been done in the last twelve months and we can confidently look forward to meet
our next challenges.
Nevertheless, we should also exercise a healthy self-criticism
as there is always a possibility for improvement. I would like to mention some
points, which – in my opinion – are worthy of our attention.
The first one concerns the participation of our IMCG
members in IMCG activities. Without doubt a lot of work has been done in the
past but the main load lies on the shoulders of just very few people. It would
be great to achieve a situation where more people (members) are actively involved
in the countless IMCG activities, to take work of the Executive Committee’s
shoulders. On the other side, the EC should learn to hand over some actions
and to look for mechanisms on how to activate the Main Board and membership
for a more efficient co-operation. One important side-effect would then be the
recruitment of potential Main Board members. There are only nine months until
the next General Assembly and this issue becomes increasingly relevant. I mean,
it would be a great improvement to be able to have a realy competitive election
of the MB among a large group of candidates instead of spending time on recruiting
and advertizing to fill the vacancies.
I sincerely hope I am wrong, but since only a very
faint response was received after the first call for member-wide data entry
for the Expertise Database, I am often asking myself, how active are our members
actually? How many of them are happy with just being regularly informed via
the Newsletter and the IMCG homepage, but are reluctant to actively participate
in IMCG-related action? At the beginning of the coming year I will send out
a second call, with better chosen timing and more realistic deadlines and I
hope to see that the failing response on the last call was only caused by technical
factors.
The next and directly related issue to be accentuated
once more is the participation of members in the development of the legal status
of our Group. I vividly remember the long and hot discussions during the last
General Assembly in France concerning the current Constitution,
concerning the correctness of certain Articles and rules. Indeed, different
opinions and ideas especially concerning the formal regulations with respect
to the Main Board and the Executive Committee as well as regarding the election
procedure are worth consideration and in-depth discussion. We have used the
platform of the Newsletter several times already to call for such discussion,
primarily addressing those Members who are not really satisfied with the current
situation. We asked for contributions which would initialise such discussion.
Unfortunatelly nothing has happened yet. I am taking the opportunity now again
to appeal to everybody who feels unhappy with the current status of IMCG to
start a target-oriented dispute using the IMCG media (Newsletter and homepage)
now. It will be too late if you raise your critical comments only in Perth in September during the next General Assembly meeting. We seriously want
to examine every idea and comment but we also need sufficient time to do this
if we want the assembly to take an informed decision that takes your critique
into account. So please, go ahead.
Dear IMCG folks, thank you all for your interest,
support, and co-operation to date. Especially I would like to express my highest
gratitude to those IMCG friends who actively contributed to the everyday business
of our Group or to the numerous actions and activities carried out during the
last twelve months. Without their extraordinary efforts and enthusiasm IMCG
would not have been as successful as it has been.
Let’s close as usual – by wishing you a harmonious
and peaceful Christmas time and a healthy and successful year 2004.
Your Jan