Bonn, 19 November 2015 - Living in a small coastal town in northern France, Guy-Noël Olivier has a privilege to observe the yearly migration of water birds towards the East Atlantic. For more than 50 years, he has been managing a 60 hectare wetland that he uses to study and monitor snipe populations.

Guy-Noël is not your typical naturalist and hunter: along with professional life in industry and commerce, he has been interested in migratory birds from an early age.

Serving as Secretary General of OMPO (“Oiseaux Migrateurs du Paléarctique Occidental”, Migratory Birds of Western Palearctic) from 1994 to 2010, Guy-Noël was involved in at least 15 working meetings organized by CMS to clarify the concepts of AEWA and work on its official texts.

"During the negotiations of the Agreement text, I have always defended what defines the originality of OMPO, which is to combine conservation and sustainable use of migratory birds throughout their range, by people everywhere from Eurasia to Africa. I am happy that AEWA promotes this balance that is especially important in Africa."

As a representative of OMPO at the AEWA Technical Committee from 2001 to 2012, Guy-Noël has always been mindful of the "sustainable use" component of the Agreement. He contributed a lot to raising awareness amongst hunters about the benefits of sustainably managing migratory waterbird populations.

His favorite bird species of AEWA is the Snipe. At MOP1 (Cape Town, 1999), an international NGO discussed the state of conservation of a little known bird - the snipe, Lymnocryptes minimus. Guy-Noël, who has been studying the bird since 1972, wrote a paper on the species that he presented at MOP2. This paper gave birth to the first monograph in 2007 (French version) and 2008 (English version). Thus Guy-Noël has been active for fifteen years in the Woodcock and Snipe Specialists Group of Wetlands International.