Bonn, 9 June 2015 - Saulius Svazas is the principal scientist at the Lithuanian Nature Research Centre.  For him, AEWA is the key international instrument for international collaboration related to conservation and sustainable management of migratory waterbirds across the whole African-Eurasian Flyway. 

Saulius recalls an incident that happened many years ago - long before creation of AEWA even, though it is closely linked with the main ideas underpinning the Agreement.

It occurred while Saulius was doing some field work. “I was working in expedition in the Lena River delta region in Eastern Siberia and we were living in a small village of the native Evenk people. It was early spring in the tundra with thousands of waterbirds arriving, but local people had no meat. I presented them with several hunted ducks for their lunch, but they looked very sad and unhappy, and they left me alone with the oldest woman of the village. She explained that I had destroyed the whole family tree of these ducks, which had arrived to create a new life in the tundra and that local people would never taste such meat, though they would eat it when the new generation of ducks was available in late summer. It was a major lesson of my life”.

Saulius’s favourite species are the White Stork, the national bird of Lithuania, with about 20,000 breeding pairs and the Steller‘s Eider, a most mysterious species, which winters in the Baltic Sea.