|
 Bonn,
26 May 2008 – Despite strong competition from
many other parallel side events at the ninth Conference
of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity
(CBD COP9), the side event “Migratory Birds –
Ambassadors for Biodiversity”, organized by the AEWA
Secretariat in close collaboration with the WOW Project
Partnership attracted considerable interest. Over 40 COP
participants found their way to the Ministry of Transport
outside the main conference venue, where the lunch-time
side event took place.
The event used the theme of this year’s
World Migratory Bird Day: “Migratory Birds –
Ambassadors for Biodiversity” to draw attention to
the largest ongoing flyway-scale conservation initiative
in the African-Eurasian region - the Wings Over Wetlands
(WOW) UNEP-GEF African-Eurasian Flyways Project.
 The
anticipation raised by the announcement was met with a distinguished
panel (pictured right): Dr. Elsa Nickel, Head of the Directorate
for Nature Conservation of the German Environment Ministry;
Ward Hagemeijer, Head of Biodiversity and Ecological Networks,
Wetlands International; Dr. Marieta Sakalian, Programme
Management/Liaison Officer, UNEP Division of GEF Coordination;
Edoardo Zandri, the WOW Project Chief Technical Advisor,
UNOPS; Bert Lenten, Executive Secretary of AEWA and Florian
Keil, the AEWA and WOW Project Communications Officer.
The meeting was chaired by Bert Lenten.
After welcoming the participants, he gave the word to Elsa
Nickel, who introduced the topic and highlighted Germany’s
continued support to the international flyway project.
Florian Keil then gave a brief presentation
on the highlights of the recent “World Migratory Bird
Day” celebrations. He emphasized the truly global
extent this awareness raising campaign has reached over
the past three years and explained the link between this
year’s theme and the Critical Sites Network (CSN)
Tool being developed under the Wings Over Wetlands (WOW)
Project.
A new 1.5 minute film was shown to then introduce
the audience to the Wings Over Wetlands Project. The main
speaker of the event, Ward Hagemeijer from Wetlands International,
then went on to captivate the audience with a visual presentation
on waterbird migration in general and the WOW Project in
detail. He gave an overview of the different components
of the Wings over Wetlands Project and especially highlighted
the Critical Sites Network Tool (CSN), a new and freely
accessible web-portal which combines available data on waterbird
species and their habitats in the African-Eurasian region.
The presentations were followed by a lively
question and answer session.
The AEWA Secretariat and WOW Project Team would like to
thank all those who attended and contributed to the CBD
COP9 side event for their support.
For more information please visit the WOW
Project website: www.wingsoverwetlands.org
Further Information:
Photos from the CBD COP9 Side Event:
|
