A Portuguese version of the Agreement text and its annexes as amended by the 6th session of the Meeting of the Parties in November 2015 is now available thanks to the kind financial support of the Government of Switzerland. The UNEP/AEWA Secretariat is confident that this Portuguese version of the Agreement text will facilitate the implementation of AEWA by Lusophone Contracting Parties at the national level, as well as, promote the accession of Lusophone non-Party Range States.

Achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement requires scaling up of renewable energy whilst ensuring ecological integrity and biodiversity protection. Species conservation is one of the challenges. CMS has established a Multi-stakeholder Task Force on Reconciling Selected Energy Sector Developments with Migratory Species Conservation – the Energy Task Force - to address this issue internationally.

The Corale Lirica San Rocco will be giving a benefit concert in Bologna on 13 May, as part of the annual celebrations of World Migratory Bird Day. The operatic choir, which gave a concert in Bonn the last four years, will now perform in its home city. The matinee will start at 11.00 hrs in the historical Cappella Farnese di Palazzo D’Accursio.

A special volume of Ambio, the journal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, has been recently published containing 14 articles based on material presented at the Gram Slot Conference on “Goose Management: Challenges 2015” held from 27 to 29 October 2015 in Denmark. Among the contributors are Jesper Madsen and David Stroud. Jesper is a professor at the Department of Bioscience at Aarhus University in Denmark, Chairman of the Waterbird Harvest Specialist Group of Wetlands International and Coordinator of the AEWA European Goose Management Platform Data Centre, whereas David is the former Chair of the AEWA Technical Committee and a longstanding UK National Technical Focal Point for AEWA.