WLI Bulletin March 2023
Category: 6-month newsletter, News, WLI Regional News
Last updated: September 28th, 2023
WLI World March 2023
Issue 27 of WLI World: you can both download as PDF to print, or view story-by-story here. Open each story by tapping on its title.
Welcome to your latest Wetland Link International newsletter. This edition is brought to you by the letters W, W, and D, and the number 2023!
It has been a particularly busy time for wetland education since our last edition. Ramsar COP14 brought together many people from the wetland policy world, with WLI bringing an air of celebration to it: the award ceremony for the WLI Star Wetland Centres award was a joyous highlight in the packed schedule of plenary and side-events. We also met the dynamic new Secretary General to the Wetlands Convention, Dr. Musonda Mumba, who as a student volunteered at WWT London Wetland Centre. Now that is an encouraging story to tell your volunteers!
On 2 February we had World Wetlands Day, and this edition brings reports on the many different approaches they have taken. See them all trailed by the letters WWD in the title.
We also have a preview of another new action for WLI: in the next month, we will launch a small grant programme for WLI members. Visit the WLI website in April for details!
Reserve the date! The Migratory Birds for People (MBP) network will hold its annual meeting at EVOA, Portugal, on 2 to 5 October 2023. The Tagus Estuary Natural Reserve has a lot to offer water birds, especially during migratory passages… Let’s witness that phenomenon with 200,000 birds passing through this stopover, while we meet, share, and prepare our new year workplan. The actions around us are bound to inspire our work.
We will have free time to get to know the cork oak forest, vineyards, and the Lusitano horse stud that belongs to the same farm company that owns EVOA, Companhia das Lezírias. Crossing the Tagus Estuary will be another high point of our programme, helping our participants understand the biggest environmental issues around one of Europe’s ten most important wetlands.
Within the framework of the implementation of the Wetlands Action Plan financed by the MAVA Foundation for Nature, the Banc d'Arguin National Park (PNBA) and the Diawling National Park (PND) are planning to set up a national network of ornithologists, in collaboration with the Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development, the University of Nouakchott, and civil society active in conservation.
Mauritania is home to important ecosystems favourable to endemic bird species but also constitutes a stopover and a main stopover on the migratory route for wintering birds and Afro-tropical birds. Therefore, in order to monitor these species, it was decided within the framework of the PAZHOC ll Project to set up a National Network of Ornithologists.
The workshop took place at the PNBA headquarters in Mamghar and IWIK from 08/09/2022 to 12/09/2022.
At the end of the workshop, the general assembly chose the name RéNOM for the network which means National Network of Ornithologists in Mauritania.
Celebrating World Migratory Bird Day
Each year World Migratory Bird Day features an annual theme to raise awareness of issues affecting migratory birds and to inspire people and organisations around the world to conserve them. The theme for 2022 was the threat to migratory birds caused by light pollution.
With this in mind, the managers of the PND commemorated the day with an awareness campaign and a clean-up of bird habitats, highlighting the need to conserve migratory birds and their habitats with local people, especially fishermen. This activity raised awareness among fishermen about the dangers of plastic and the negative impact of plastic pollution and nets on migratory birds and their habitats.
This cleaning of the fishing sites allows to fight waste and bacteria which can have a negative impact on the hygiene and the quality of the fishing products. Cleanliness will also reduce the exposure of fishermen to mosquitoes and other insects that transmit disease during the winter months. They will be less exposed to mosquitoes and other insects that transmit diseases during the winter season.
At the end of the cleaning activity, the fishermen who had participated in the cleaning activities were given mosquito nets and torches to encourage them to continue their conservation efforts. The torches made available to the villagers are to encourage them to continue their efforts in reducing the brightness that affects the birds, in line with this year's theme.
The celebration of World Migratory Bird Day is part of the MAVA-funded project "Conservation of Wetlands and Coastal Birds in Mauritania (PNBA and PND)-PAZHOC II RIM" which aims to improve the conservation of wetlands and coastal birds.
In the last edition of WLI World we learned about the mangrove nursery at a school, run by CRGB in Benin. They have also created a Youth Club for the sustainable conservation of the mangrove.
Twenty-three of you now have a shiny metal plaque on your visitor centre announcing that you are a WLI Star Wetland Centre. Congratulations! Our panel met virtually and assessed the fifty applications in the pilot year of this accreditation scheme.
Commiserations to those of you who did not win a Star. Please do not be disheartened, rather, we hope the Stars can help you: the application form may have helped you understand your own wetland centre better; and the winners may help inspire you. As well as looking around the WLI website at their member profiles, we will also hold a webinar with some of them in October.
Visit wli.wwt.org.uk/stars to watch the recording of the award ceremony and click through to the profiles of all the winning centres.
At the recent Ramsar Conference of the Parties (COP14) in Geneva and Wuhan last year, a Resolution on the new CEPA approach was agreed. This would see a focussing down on core priorities, development of practical tools and increasing capacity in the Ramsar Secretariat offices. You can see more on the Ramsar website, linked from this story in the online version of this newsletter.
There is also a commitment to integrating CEPA more closely into the Ramsar Convention’s core activities, and to work more closely with national CEPA focal points as well as setting up a more active CEPA oversight panel of experts. Chris Rostron has been nominated for the panel, and we will work to ensure that wetland centres and onsite CEPA activities will still play a key role in getting the message about wetland to the people that need it!
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Each year the Kansas Wetlands Education Center uses the World Wetlands Day materials to present programs to area middle school students. This year, 622 youth and teachers were reached. The Kansas Wetlands Education Center is located at Cheyenne Bottoms, the largest inland marsh in the interior of the United States. Unfortunately, the wetland is suffering from a drought, and there is no surface water in the wetland complex currently.
The program started with a demonstration: Freshwater is rare. Wetlands provide most of it. Using a cup of water, amounts are removed from the cup, until just a drop of water remains. Water that is too salty, freshwater stored in glaciers, and water stuck deep underground is represented through each removal, until students are shown that less than 1% of the water on our planet is usable, and a third of that water is stored in wetlands.
Students then played a Kahoot! game to learn facts about wetlands and Cheyenne Bottoms. Kahoot! is a platform for gamified learning. Students answered multiple choice and true/false questions to learn key facts to celebrate World Wetlands Day. Try it yourself!
Using the 7 benefits infographic from worldwetlandsday.org, students placed each benefit on the WWD poster. Each benefit was discussed and made relevant to the benefits of Cheyenne Bottoms. Participants then used their artistic talents to sculpt the reasons from the Wetland Restoration: Why is it Time? infographic. Small groups each received a reason and moldable dough. At the end of the sculpting time, the class did a gallery walk-through to examine each sculpture and make determinations on which reason each group was responsible for sculpting. This allowed students to fully realize why restoring lost and degraded wetlands is urgent!
Students were then left with an important question. What could a young teenager do to help keep us from losing more wetlands or to restore the wetlands that remain? By making conscious choices, using persuasive voices, and taking bold actions, students can create a ripple effect in wetland restoration. Each middle school student was challenged to take a bold action and join our public wetland clean-up day scheduled in March. With the drought, we can see, and easily access, trash that has blown in or been dumped in the water ways of our wetland. The clean-up efforts of these students will help create a healthier marsh system when the water returns.
For more information about the Kansas Wetlands Education Center or Cheyenne Bottoms, visit wetlandscenter.fhsu.edu
- Mandy Kern.
The Regional Park Salinas y Arenales de San Pedro del Pinatar celebrates World Wetlands Day every year with different activities, aimed at both schoolchildren and the general public.
This year there have been four guided visits with IES Dos Mares, a school in the area, in which our nearest wetlands have been treated in depth: the Mar Menor and the Salinas de San Pedro.
Through games and exploration we have worked with the schoolchildren on the environmental problems suffered by our wetlands, and the need to restore these places that are so necessary for life. As this year's slogan says, it’s time for wetland restoration! There was also a special guided tour for families, called "A Mar Menor of stories" where people of all ages enjoyed a tour full of beautiful stories whose protagonist was the protected wetland of the Mar Menor.
The Information, Dissemination and Environmental Revitalisation Service in protected areas has been co-financed by the Operational Programme ERDF Region of Murcia 2014-2020 of the Directorate General for the Natural Environment.
ERDF European Regional Development Fund. A way of doing Europe
Author: Team of the Information Service of the Regional Park Salinas y Arenales de San Pedro del Pinatar, Directorate General for the Natural Environment. Department of the Environment, Mar Menor, Universities and Research.
We conducted a range of community engagements across the week of World Wetlands Day, from the 31st of January to the 5th of February. This was to provide multiple opportunities for the community to participate.
Across all 10 of the programmes/activities we had over 100 face-to-face engagements with the local community. We were quite happy with the turnout we received at each of the activities.
Mini and Junior Park Rangers - We offered three different days of activities to a variety of audiences. These included a pre booked session, a parkland pop-up and a visit from a local Early Learning Centre. Across the programs we provided a range of experiences such as wetland walks, mangrove tree talks, water investigations, and crafting (e.g. mangrove mud paintings, wetland creature tile rubbings and clay creations).
Lifestyle Walk-n-Talk & BirdLife Walk-n-Talk - Three walks took place across that week that explored the many wetland areas around Sydney Olympic Park. One was led by our Wetland Manager Swapan Paul. We took various member of the public to these areas and explained the significance of the wetlands.
Park Care Clean Up - We also ran two programs for the local community to volunteer and contribute to the care and maintenance of the wetland environments surrounding the parklands. The groups partook in a range of activities such as rubbish collection, plant identification and general maintenance.
Sydney Wetland Institute Webinar
Self-Guided Tour – EcoRamble: Follow the Flow - A new self-guided tour was created and published on our App, which follows the flow of Haslams Creek and stops a keys points of ecological interest.
The Conservation for Iranian Wetlands Project (CIWP) summaries some of their activities.
On World Wetlands Day 2023, Iranian’s local environmental activists held an awareness-raising event and painting competition at a village near Lake Urmia called Khaselou Village. Forty members of the women’s micro-credit fund and their children took part.
Khaselou Village is one of CIWP sites where a micro-credit fund was established in 2016. The funds have been one of the CIWP’s initiatives in the the ‘Livelihood Diversification Adapted to Wetland Resource’ project since 2013. These funds aim to accumulate micro-capital and provide micro-facilities to women who are living in rural areas to create livelihoods adapted to wetland resources.
This year, more than 40 other similar events have been held in the vicinity of Lake Urmia with the aim of raising awareness of different target groups among local communities and conserving wetlands.
Local environmental comedians and artists held a fun and entertaining event for 80 children (aged 9-12 years) in Qazi Jahan village (one of the villages in the vicinity of Lake Urmia) by making a custom stuffed pelican (great white pelican, named Jingili).
Every year, the great white pelican flies to Iran (if there are suitable bio-ecological conditions) from northern latitudes, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. They migrate to warmer regions and spend the winter in Lake Urmia or its satellite wetlands, and stay there until next spring.
The aims of this event were raising awareness on the great white pelican specie, its habitat, conserving wetlands species, biodiversity, and children’s role in the conservation of the wetlands.
World Wetland Days…hmmm! We have just passed our 19th birthday as a not-for-profit organization devoted to conserving wetlands, and, yes, we have special activities planned for 02 February. The foundation has at present 7 professionals in the team, thanks to the support of COPEC, Chile´s leading petrol company, of Fundación Ibañez-Atkinson, of Aguas Antofagasta and of our volunteers and collaborators.
So – in a sense – WWD is just another working day!
And here is an example of what we do. On 25 January, thanks to the collaboration of the former director of the Antofagasta office of the Ministry of Medio Ambiente, Rafael Castro, with our professional Bianca Pereira, who has a degree in forestry and a Master in conservation, we went three hours south of Santiago to visit a group of fruit farmers in Los Guindos, led by Francisco Torrrealba. The group is taking all possible measures to prevent the construction of a highway bordering the river Teno and their properties. We are already in consultation with a farmer a little further north, Jose Ortega, whose extensive fruit farm borders the river Cachapoal.
The motor industry and the road construction industries will continue to manufacture cars and to build roads in Chile. And roads will be built over and beside rivers. So, our work in providing information about the flora and fauna that will be destroyed in the process will become increasingly relevant to support the protests of farmers who will be affected.
The relevance of this for wetland conservation? Well, the optimist will tell us, among other things, that the replacing of petrol by electricity for car engines will reduce air pollution. That the improvement of public transport and the proliferation of car-sharing organizations will reduce car use.
The pessimist will point out that Chile needs more, wider roads, which will inevitably be constructed, and will ask about the disposal of old cars.
It´s another manifestation of the confrontation between development and conservation.
For World Wetlands Day, we will be present at an event in the Municipality of Quilicura, Santiago, and working with the local communities to clean up wetlands in Loncoche, and in the Regions of Valparaiso and Antofagasta.
The Ministry reckons that there are some 40,000 wetlands in Chile, so we have plenty of work ahead!