"Migratory Birds for People" Meeting Held at Lake Takern in Sweden

Bonn, 24 October 2013- The annual meeting of the Migratory Birds for People (MBP) Programme took place from 29 September to 1 October 2013 at the recently opened NATURUM visitor centre near Lake Takern, Sweden. Lake Takern is one of Sweden's primary wildlife lakes and one of the most important breeding and resting places for waterbirds in Northern Europe.

The Migratory Birds for People programme currently consists of 20 partner wetland visitor centres which stretch across Europe and West Africa, forming a network that follows the flight path of many migratory waterbird species along the East Atlantic Flyway. The aim of the MBP’s annual meeting was to bring together the main actors behind the network, discuss the progress of the programme and to share best practices.

“The MBP centres are working together in the true spirit of flyway conservation to share best practice and develop new and shared approaches to delivering wetland and nature education messages to their visitors!” said Florian Keil, who attended the meeting on behalf of the UNEP/AEWA Secretariat and gave a presentation on the topic of World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD).

One of the main results of the meeting was the update of the MBP Action Plan, which defines the aims of the MBP Programme. Using some of the information gained at the meeting, the plan now includes several ideas to develop shared educational resources, as well as to work more closely with AEWA and other network partners. Participants at the meeting included staff responsible for the management and/or nature education work at the various MBP wetland visitor centres located along the Flyway as well as from a number of supporting organisations such as Wetland Link International, Wetlands International, the Secretariat of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, Eurosite and the Dutch Staatsbosbeheer.

The annual MBP meeting was hosted and co-organized by staff of Wetland Link International and the NATURUM Takern - one of Sweden's most state-of-the-art wildlife visitor centre’s situated at the southern shore of lake Takern. The shallow lake is considered one of Sweden’s primary bird lakes, with 270 recorded bird species and thousands of Bean and Greylag Geese, Cranes and other waterbirds regularly observed resting at Lake Takern during migration.“While prior to this meeting, AEWA was notably absent from the MBP programme, the link to AEWA has now clearly been established. Not only does the MBP strategy now include some relevant references to AEWA and to World Migratory Bird Day, the MBP network and especially the dedicated group of people behind it are really enthusiastic about working together and some are already planning their events for WMBD 2014!” said Florian Keil.