Turkmenistan has acceded to the African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement (AEWA) bringing the number of Parties to that Agreement to 82. Turkmenistan has also acceded to the Convention becoming the 132nd Party.
In a historic decision, the use of lead gunshot in wetlands will be banned in all European Union Member States under REACH, the EU’s framework regulation for chemicals. This decision is in response to the provisions of AEWA and marks one of the greatest conservation achievements in the 25-year history of the Agreement. No other single measure implemented under AEWA to date will have had such a wide-reaching impact on the overall well-being of the migratory waterbirds AEWA was conceived to protect.
A new five-year flyway project ‘Providing a climate resilient network of critical sites for the Lesser White-fronted Goose in Europe’ (LIFE19 NAT/LT/000898) has received final approval under the EU LIFE funding mechanism, and is expected to provide a considerable boost to the implementation of coordinated conservation action for this globally threatened species.
A BirdLife webinar entitled “Birds connect people along the East Atlantic Flyway” took place on 8 October 2020 and attracted over 100 participants.
As part of the global celebration of this year’s World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD), the UNEP/AEWA Secretariat joined several national BirdLife partners in a special webinar organized by BirdLife International focussing on the East Atlantic Flyway. The East Atlantic Flyway, which extends from Arctic regions of Canada, Greenland, Iceland and the Russian Federation to the southern tip of Africa is an important migration pathway covered by the African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement (AEWA).
To mark World Migratory Bird Day on 10 October, the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB/BirdLife Bulgaria) and AEWA Red-breasted Goose International Working Group (AEWA RbG IWG) are presenting a new video, telling the story of Emilia, a satellite tagged Red-breasted Goose. Emilia was fitted with a satellite tag as part of the “LIFE for Safe Flight” project in 2019 while in Kazakhstan on her migration north towards her breeding grounds in the Russian Arctic. Her long stay there suggested that she and her mate had successfully bred.
Birds can be found everywhere: in cities and in the countryside; in parks and backyards, in forests and mountains, and in wetlands and along the shores. They connect all these habitats and they connect us, reminding us of our own connection to the planet, the environment, wildlife and each other. Through their seasonal movements, migratory birds also remind us of nature’s cycles.
An estimated one million waterbirds fall victim every year to lead poisoning after consuming spent shot.
Following a four-year-long process conducted under the auspices of REACH, the EU’s over-arching legal framework for the regulation of the use of chemicals, EU Member States voted in favour of a Union-wide restriction to ban the use of lead gunshot in wetlands with an overwhelming 90 per cent majority in early September.
For the first time a case under the AEWA Implementation Review Process (IRP) has been closed following the announcement that the United Kingdom has removed the Greenland White-fronted Goose (Anser albifrons flavirostris) from the list of huntable species. Not satisfied that the incomplete statutory protection from hunting throughout the United Kingdom was in conformity with the terms of the AEWA Treaty, the Greenland White-fronted Goose Study supported by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and the Welsh Ornithological Society in June 2017 submitted information for a possible case for consideration under the IRP.
The UNEP/AEWA Secretariat is pleased to present the refreshed layout of the AEWA Plan of Action for Africa (PoAA) 2019-2027
The UNEP/AEWA Secretariat is pleased to present the refreshed layout of the AEWA Plan of Action for Africa (PoAA) 2019-2027. The Plan was adopted through Resolution 7.1 at the 7th Session of the Meeting of the Parties in South Africa in December 2018. At the PoAA Working Group meeting (Senegal, October 2017), the African Contracting Parties made a request to the Secretariat to give the PoAA, once adopted, a user-friendly and vibrant layout in order to visually reflect the content of the plan. We hope that with its new look, the AEWA PoAA will be a useful tool for the wide range of stakeholders involved in the implementation of the Agreement.
