The African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement’s (AEWA) African Initiative Technical Support Unit (TSU), based at the Tour du Valat, and co-managed by the Tour du Valat and the French National Office for Hunting and Wildlife (ONCFS) (more info) continued its support operations for its African partners in recent months.
First of all, a workshop to improve the quality and quantity of data on waterbirds in francophone African countries was organised and facilitated by the TSU from 9 to 13 December in Dakar, Senegal.
The participants to the Dakar workshop on the field in December 2014 (© AEWA)
This workshop targeted managers of databases in francophone African countries that are contracting parties to the AEWA, in order to verify, update, and complete the existing waterbird census databases. To be able to establish trends and make estimates of population sizes for species conservation, it is indispensable to dispose of a properly formatted set of up-to-date data, which can then be transmitted to international scientific organisations after the data has been processed and analysed.
This workshop was organised in response to a request expressed by these countries within the framework of the AEWA Plan of Action for Africa. Improving the quality and quantity of data had already been identified as a priority by the African contracting parties at the previous workshop organised by the TSU in Dakar in December 2013.
It was conducted in close collaboration with the Wadden Sea Flyway Initiative, Wetlands International Africa, and Birdlife’s Conservation of Migratory Birds Programme. The two AEWA sub-regional focal points for West Africa and Central Africa lent support to this workshop, which brought together IWC national database managers from Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, the Congo, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Chad, and Togo, and with participation of the Wildlife College of Garoua (Cameroon).
Second, also within the framework of supporting the AEWA African Initiative and with a view to improving data on waterbirds for the African continent, Jean-Yves Mondain-Monval and Pierre Defos du Rau (ONCFS), both on the TSU, travelled to Egypt in January 2015 to provide assistance to representatives of the Egyptian Environmental protection Agency (EEAA) and Nature Conservation Sector (NCS).
The participants to the waterbird census in Egypt in January 2015, amongst whom two representatives from the UST
The two principal objectives of this joint project were to monitor two major African wetlands, the Egyptian part of Lake Nasser (the largest dammed lake in Africa) and the wetland along the Nile, stretching from Aswan to Asyut. In addition, the NCS team in Aswan was offered a new telescope.
The initial results of these remarkable efforts include the counting of more than 600 Ferruginous Ducks (Aythya nyroca) near Aswan, a population of international importance for this species. A recommendation was also made to continue research at Lake Nasser, to better control the widespread poaching there and improve the management of waterbird hunting.
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Contact: Clémence Deschamps, TSU Project Manager at the Tour du Valat (e-mail)