Kerkini/Greece, 29 November 2008 - Project managers and monitoring experts gathered in late November for the final coordination meeting of the EU LIFE project “Conservation of the Lesser White-fronted Goose on its European migration route” at Lake Kerkini in Greece. The project meeting was held back to back with a training workshop on Lesser White-fronted Goose identification for 35 ornithologists from Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey.

Lake Kerkini area in Greece is known to be one of the key wintering sites for Lesser White-fronted Geese. In the period of end-October to mid-March, the main flock of the Fennoscandian population can usually be found here or in the nearby Evros Delta. On 27 November, the LIFE project team recorded that 45 birds had arrived at the lake. Continuing observations confirmed that the main flock appears to be spending most of the winter at Lake Kerkini this year.

The regular monitoring of sites throughout the course of the LIFE Project has already provided important insights into the species' wintering pattern - and identified some new questions to be addressed. "We still do not know where our flock of Lesser White-fronts disappears to during short periods in some of the winters" said Yannis Tsougrakis, coordinator of the Greek part of the project.

This highlighted the need for a broader monitoring network with the neighbouring countries in South-Eastern Europe - a key outcome of this training workshop. Possibly accompanied by a fact-finding mission to neighbouring Turkey, the new network will help address any remaining gaps in the knowledge about this important region for the species. It is coordinated by the Hellenic Ornithological Society, the BirdLife partner in Greece, and is largely based on voluntary commitment received from the participating organisations during the workshop.

"We expect that the new collaboration with our colleagues in Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey not the least in Greece can provide us with a gapless picture of the distribution of the Fennoscandian population in its southern staging and wintering grounds" said Yannis Tsougrakis on behalf of the Hellenic Ornithological Society. "The network thereby suggests a response to two requirements outlined under result 5 of the International Single Species Action Plan", he concludes. These points are: to establish an effective network of coordinated counts in the wintering grounds for acurate monitoring of overall population trends, and to locate all the key sites for the Fennoscandian population by a combination of satellite tracking and field surveys. The South-Eastern European monitoring group will be associated with the International Working Group for the implementation of the International Action Plan.

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