Bonn, 30 November 2015 - Olivier Biber is well known in AEWA and CMS circles as a regular participant in COPs, MOPs, Standing Committees, the Scientific Council and the Technical Committee.  For him, AEWA is one of the most effective agreements in the field of biodiversity conservation. It is, he says, the basis of many successful actions of conservation and sustainable use of waterbirds and their habitats, in particular in Africa. AEWA has also been one of the most innovative intergovernmental treaties in several respects.  Examples are the “Wings Over Wetlands” project made possible through obtaining considerable support from the GEF and the development of the online reporting system.

“I have the privilege of having been part of AEWA since its conception and birth in The Hague. It was not difficult to explain to the Swiss Government that it was of outmost importance for Switzerland to join this Agreement … and at the same time join the CMS … because Switzerland with its many large lakes was a platform between north and south for migrating waterbirds”, says Olivier.

His best memories regarding AEWA are certainly the meetings of the Technical Committee because they added so much value to the effectiveness of the Agreement.

The White Stork is certainly one of the species of central interest to Olivier, although he would now, as a chair of the African-Eurasian Migratory Landbird Working Group, tend to consider it to be a landbird rather than a waterbird.