Last February, the team from the technical support unit to the AEWA African Initiative (OFB/TDV) assisted its Chadian partner, the General Directorate for Wildlife and Protected Areas (DFAP), in waterbird census operations. Together, the teams visited the Zakouma National Park in Chad as part of the RESSOURCE+ project implementation, coordinated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and co-financed by the French Facility for Global Environment (FFEM) and the European Union (EU).
Lake Fitri is one of the five major wintering areas for Palearctic and Afro-tropical waterbirds in the Sahel. It is a Ramsar site covering more than 195,000 hectares, and it is considered a mini Lake Chad, playing a pivotal role in supporting birdlife. Evaluating wintering bird populations in this area is imperative. However, its vast expanse, flooded forests, and dense surrounding vegetation make accessibility extremely difficult, only an aerial survey could enable the assessment of populations and their distribution. This operation was carried out with the support of African Parks (APN), an NGO that has managed the Park for over 10 years.
The programme for this event included classroom training to identify species and value data, capacity building for agents on reporting to international conventions (AEWA, Ramsar), and numerous field sessions for in situ training on identifying and counting waterbirds. Overall, the operation allowed the counting of birds present across about thirty marshes. Once validated, the collected data will contribute to the international database managed by Wetlands International.
A systematic sampling by plane carried out by Pierre Defos du Rau, Julien Birard, and Abakar Saleh Wachoum also enabled the counting on Lake Fitri.
During this visit, two pairs of Leica binoculars (AEWA/WI) were donated to DFAP. This high-quality equipment will greatly assist them in carrying out their field activities in the coming years.
Finally, a new activity was also carried out, thanks to OFB co-funding:
But what are these two people doing?
Are they studying the flight distance of buffaloes? Mowing the lawn?
No! Mr. Abderaman Outman and Abdel Awahab from the Aouk team (African Parks) are collecting water samples for the environmental DNA (eDNA) study. Once sent to the laboratory responsible for the study (SPYGEN), the capsules used to filter the water from around twenty marshes will enable the extraction of eDNA. The objective is to test a new experimental approach to quantitatively monitor African waterbirds by correlating eDNA quantities with waterbird abundance.
