Tim lives on the remote Scottish island of Papa Westray, where he works from home adjacent to a nature reserve important for a number of AEWA species. When he is not being a freelance conservationist, he serves as fire-fighter, tour guide and license holder for the local shop and bar. Previously Tim has lived and worked in Somalia, Zambia and Senegal, whilst shorter missions have taken him to nearly 40 countries in Africa. His main areas of expertise are project development, capacity-building and community-based wetland conservation, whilst he has a deep awareness of wetlands and waterbird conservation issues in Africa.

The Nature Conservation Sector (NCS) of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) in close cooperation with Nature Conservation Egypt (NCE), recently completed a project aimed at boosting efforts towards waterbird conservation in the Red Sea coastal region in Egypt. This project was implemented from April 2011 to December 2014 and financed in the framework of the AEWA Small Grants Fund (SGF).

Joëlle Zouzou is the National Focal Point for Côte d’Ivoire, which is one of the newest countries to have joined AEWA having acceded in June 2013 thus becoming the 70th Party to the Agreement. Joëlle attended the École Nationale Supérieure d’Agronomie between 1991 and 1997 where she studied for her diploma as an agronomist specializing in water and forestry.

In the geographic region of AEWA I believe that most humans, if not all, have an interest in birds and the remarkable lives and migrations they lead. Birdsongs are part of every human childhood memory. Sadly the famous book ‘Silent Spring’ is today as relevant as ever and we therefore need to increase our efforts to look at how we in our daily activities can be sustainable and how we can restore habitats. Otherwise, we face the possibility that generations will grow up without the intimate relationship to the most famous species group in the world, because their populations are much depleted.