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Dieren en planten

International Wadden Sea policy

The first Trilateral Governmental Conferences between Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands concerning the protection of the Wadden Sea was held in the Hague in 1978. This conference signified the official start of a cooperation, upon which the formal foundation is the Joint Declaration for the Protection of the Wadden Sea. This declaration was signed during the Third Wadden Sea Conference in Copenhagen in 1982. The ministers for nature and environmental issues get together once every three years. The purpose of these conferences is to gear each country's wadden policy to the others.

  • Joint declaration

    According to the Joint Declaration, the Wadden Sea countries declare their intention to coordinate their activities and measures to implement a number of international legal instruments in the field of natural environmental protection, amongst others the Ramsar Convention and the EC Bird Directive, for a comprehensive protection of the Wadden Sea region as a whole, including its flora and fauna. The EC Habitat Directive was added in 1992.

  • Not a law

    The international agreements have no power of law. They must be processed into policy documents and legal regulations of the three countries. Each country has very different regulations.

  • CWSS

    The three countries agreed to intensify and widen the contact between the responsible political organs, such as holding regular minister conferences. In 1987, a Joint Wadden Sea Secretariat (CWSS) was established, with its primary task to support, initiate, facilitate and coordinate the activities of the collaboration.
    A trilateral workgroup put together the data for Red Lists of various plants and animal species in the wadden region. These Red List species are partially determined from the Red Lists in Denmark, Schleswig-Holstein, Niedersachsen and the Netherlands.

  • Subjects:

    Trilateral Cooperation on the Protection of the Wadden Sea
    Boundaries of the Wadden Sea
    Wadden Sea conferences
    World heritage
    Council for the Wadden