Bonn,
21 December 2011 - The late Dr. Brooks Childress in the individual category and the International
Wader Study Group in the institutional category are the winners
of the 2012 AEWA Waterbird Conservation Award. This award,
which recognizes contributions to the conservation, research
and monitoring of migratory waterbirds, as well as support
to the development of the Agreement, will be presented
at the opening ceremony of the 5th Session of the Meeting
of the Parties to AEWA on 14 May 2012 in La Rochelle,
France.

Earlier this year, the UNEP/AEWA Secretariat
announced the call for nominations for the AEWA Waterbird
Conservation
Award in the institutional and individual categories.
The nominees, all of them ardent activists in the field
of waterbird conservation and thus deserving recognition,
were carefully considered by the AEWA Standing Committee
at its seventh meeting on 26 - 27 November 2011 in Bergen,
Norway.

The final winners were selected because of their particular
achievements and their activities contributing to the
development of the Agreement in the areas of waterbird
and habitat conservation, management of human activities,
research and monitoring or education and information.

The AEWA Waterbird Conservation Award was established
by the Standing Committee at its second meeting (November
2004, Bonn, Germany) and is presented at each session
of the Meeting of the Parties in order to recognize
and honour institutions and individuals within the
Agreement
area, deserving particular merit for their contribution
to the conservation and sustainable use of waterbirds.

The winners of the 2012 AEWA Waterbird
Conservation Award:

The
late Dr.
Brooks Childress, the winner in the individual
category, has had a long-standing involvement in nature
conservation. From 2007 – 2010 he served as the Chair
of the IUCN/SSC/Wetlands International Flamingo Specialist
Group (FSG). During this time, he produced the CMS/AEWA
International Single Species Action Plan for the Lesser
Flamingo, and raised the funds needed to hold the stakeholder
action planning workshop in Kenya. As a follow up of this,
national action plans were produced for Kenya and Tanzania,
and national action planning is underway in South Africa
and Botswana. Dr. Childress also played an important role
in putting in the spotlight the plans for development of
a soda ash plant at Lake Natron, a site of critical importance
for the Lesser Flamingo. In recognition of this, he subsequently
received the IUCN Harry Messel Award for Conservation Leadership
in 2008.

Following a successful 27-year business
career in the USA, England and Canada, Dr. Childress
took up a new
career
in biodiversity conservation. He studied for a PhD
on the breeding biology and feeding ecology of the Great
Cormorants
on Lake Naivasha, registered at the University of Leicester
(UK) and received his doctorate in Biological Sciences
in 1998. Dr. Childress has also served as a honorary
Research Associate in the Threatened Species Unit of
the Wildfowl & Wetlands
Trust and the Department of Ornithology in the National
Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, being an Honorary Visiting
Fellow in the Department of Biology, University of
Leicester.

Dr. Childress has been an inspiration, guide, mentor and
friend to the conservation network in Europe and Africa
over the last two decades. His hard work, dedication and
professionalism helped to breathe new life into flamingo
and wetland conservation in this region. Sadly, Dr. Childress
passed away in July 2011.

The International Wader Study
Group (IWSG), the winner in the institutional category, has
been a key player in
promoting AEWA’s objectives with respect to waders
(shorebirds) since its entry into force in 1999. The
IWSG provides a unique platform where professional and
amateur
researchers, united in their fascination for waders,
can coordinate their work in support of the needs of
the conservation
of these species. Members work together to help synthesize
data and information to provide much information necessary
for the effective conservation of AEWA-listed waders.

The collective activity of the IWSG has been highly supportive
of the development of flyway scale waterbird conservation.
Its development of strategic approaches to flyway conservation
in the 1990s influenced the development of the Agreement
and its Action Plan. Since then, the IWSG has provided
key data for instance for the Wader Atlas, a milestone
publication, supported by AEWA, on numbers, distribution
and movements of these waterbirds. The IWSG has strengthened
flyway-scale links throughout the AEWA region and also
to North America and eastern Asia, through its annual conferences,
workshops and joint research projects.

The UNEP/AEWA Secretariat warmly congratulates the winners
of the 2012 Award and gratefully acknowledges their major
contributions to waterbird conservation in the AEWA region.

We would also like to thank all those involved in nominating
candidates for this award, whose excellent achievements
were equally recognized during the selection procedure.

We hope that this award serves as an inspiration
for all the many conservationists working together towards
the
protection of AEWA species.