Accession of Burkina Faso Raises Number of AEWA Contracting Parties to 72

Bonn, 1 August 2013 - The UNEP/AEWA Secretariat warmly welcomes Burkina Faso, which will officially become a Party to AEWA on 1 October 2013. Burkina Faso’s accession brings the number of African Contracting Parties to 32.

Burkina Faso, which means “Land of upright people”, is a landlocked country in West Africa, surrounded by Mali, Niger, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo and Benin. The country covers a surface area of 274,200 km² and is relatively flat with an average altitude of 400m above sea level. It falls within three bioclimatic zones, the Sahelian, Sudanian and the Sudano-Guinean, each with distinct ecological characteristics.

Burkina Faso has a relatively well-pronounced hydrographic network, especially in the southern part of the country. The resulting rich diversity of flora and fauna is protected in four National Parks and several reserves and protected forests, some of which provide important habitats for migratory waterbirds covered by AEWA. The Béli River, Lake Sourou, Lake Oursi – Lake Darkoye and Lake Kompienga have been identified as critical sites for migratory waterbirds under the Critical Site Network Tool. Out of the 447 bird species occurring in Burkina Faso (BirdLife International Data Zone) 103 are migratory waterbirds, 76 of which are covered under AEWA. Examples include the Black-crowned Crane (Balearica pavonina), which is classified as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List and the Great Snipe (Gallinago media) and the Eurasian Curlew (Numenius arquata), both of which are classified as Near Threatened.

In addition to AEWA, Burkina Faso is a Party to a number of other environmental treaties such as the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

The accession of Burkina Faso directly contributes to Target 5.1 of the AEWA Plan of Action for Africa 2012-2017 (adopted at the 5th Session of the Meeting of the Parties to AEWA in 2012), which relates to the expansion of the Agreement in Africa.

The UNEP/AEWA Secretariat welcomes Burkina Faso and is looking forward to working closely with the responsible national authorities and other stakeholders to promote the implementation of AEWA in the country.