Programme Manager's Message

Welcome! A great deal has happened since our last edition. We are excited to announce that 29 teams working on a range of globally threatened species and habitats from 23 countries across the world are being awarded a total of $600,000 by the BP Conservation Programme this year. This is the most ever awarded in our 14-year history. These ground-breaking projects are focusing on topics ranging from the conservation of the Gangetic dolphin in the Brahmaputra River system in India, to protecting bat species across Madagascar, to working towards the conservation of all 29 of Bolivia’s globally threatened bird species. Some teams will map their research areas, highlighting key areas for protection and restoration, while others will be working in regions already identified as highest priority ('critical') for conservation in order to protect some of the most highly endangered species on the planet.

From 27th May until 18th June, representatives from each of the 29 winning teams will attend three weeks of practical training workshops, run in collaboration with the Expedition Advisory Centre of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in London and the Field Studies Council in Snowdonia, Wales. Winners will learn about biological monitoring and surveying techniques, conservation education, people-oriented research, communications skills and more. This training will assist them in carrying out their projects and allow them the opportunity to meet and share ideas with each other and a wide range of world-class global conservation experts. An event hosted by BP on the 16th June gives the Programme’s partnership the opportunity to celebrate the achievements of these conservationists, who hold the potential to become the environmental leaders of the future. For more information on this year’s award winners, please visit our website: http://conservation.bp.com/news/default.asp.

The Programme has now supported more than 250 projects in 74 countries, involving over 2500 participants globally. Read on to about some of the recent achievements teams have been making over the past few months.

Marianne Dunn, BP Conservation Programme Manager

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5 June 2004 World Environment Day. Visit: http://www.unep.org/wed/2004/.

30 July – 2 August 2004 Society For Conservation Biology Annual Meeting, New York, USA. Visit: http://www.cerc.columbia.edu/scb2004/.

7 - 9 September British Ecological Society 2004 Annual Meeting, Lancaster, UK. Visit: http://www.britishecologicalsociety.org.

31 October 2004 BP Conservation Programme application deadline.

14 – 17 November 2004 Carnivores 2004: Expanding Partnerships in Carnivore Conservation Conference, New Mexico, USA. Visit: www.carnivoreconference.org.

July 2005 Society for Conservation Biology 19th Annual Meeting, Brasilia, Brazil. Visit: http://conbio.org.

The AndinoHerps project, funded by the BP Conservation Programme in 2000, has continued with their field and lab work over the last three years and are about to publish, on the basis of their data, what will be the first field guide for any of the frogs of Ecuador. It will serve as a model for a regionally based guide, making information immediately available. In addition to this bi-lingual Spanish/English guide, descriptions for two of the new species that the project found are now in press—the team needs more field data to confirm whether or not any of the other five putative new species can be published. They are also submitting species reports to the AmphibiaWeb, a comprehensive database of worldwide amphibians, and have participated in a recent series of workshops run by Conservation International to put together a global amphibian decline database.

News From the Field

AFRICA

Birds of Rio Muni, Equatorial Guinea (Bronze Award 2003)
During February and March 2004, the Birds of Rio Muni project team completed species surveys of two sites on mainland Equatorial Guinea: the Monte Mitra region of the Parque Nacional de Monte Alen, and the Rio Muni estuary. Read more...

Options in Yala Wetland Management, Kenya (Bronze Award 2003)
The Yala Wetland Management Team has been working to better understand the resources provided by the wetland, as well as the needs of local communities who rely on these resources. They have been working to design sound management options that are sustainable and will ensure conservation of the swamp. Read more...

ASIA / PACIFIC

CROC Project, Philippines (Follow-up Award 2003)
The CROC project, run by six young conservationists, aims to conserve the critically endangered Philippine crocodile in its natural habitat. To give an impression of what the project is doing in the field, the team describes a typical day. Read more...

Conservation of Myristica swamps, Western Ghats, India (Bronze Award 2003)
Using primary field surveys and available data, the myristica swamp team has created an extensive distribution map of the myristica swamps in the Western Ghats. Using advanced GIS tools and ecological niche modelling approaches, the team is currently set to predict the likely occurrence of swamps in the rest of the Western Ghats. Read more...

White-Shouldered Ibis, Indonesia (Follow-up Award 2003)
The Ibis Karau Project team organized a two-day training in March aimed at university students to increase their understanding of bird monitoring and conservation. The training focused on bird watching and bird monitoring skills and was carried out in the Faculty of Forestry Mulawarman University and in Samarinda Botanical Gardens with 23 participants. Read more...

Action Tayam-peh, Nicobar Islands, India (Follow-up Award 2004)
Action Tayam-peh is an ecological initiative involving indigenous communities in the Nicobar Islands, India. It aims to conserve the endemic Nicobar flying fox (Tayam Peh, in Nicobarese language), a medium sized flying fox species, from hunting pressure and current forest practices in the Nicobar Islands. Read more...

Primate Survey in Nonggang National Nature Reserve, China (Bronze Award 2003)
Surveys of white-headed langur and Francois’ langur in Nonggang Nature Reserve were conducted from December 2003 to February 2004. Students from the College of Life Sciences, Guangxi Normal University, local staff of the Department of Forest and Wildlife Protection (DFWP) and local residents took part in the surveying after a two-week training. Read more...

Project Pasoso, Indonesia (Bronze Award 2003)
Project Pasoso team member Abigail Moore attended the 24th International Sea Turtle Symposium (ISTS) in Costa Rica and presented a poster on the project's research and conservation work. The team has now completed the year long green turtle baseline data collection, but conservation activities at the Pasoso site are ongoing. Read more...

Project Garuda, Indonesia (Follow-up Award 2002)
While monitoring of the Javan Hawk-eagle and its nest continue, the Project Garuda team has been busy raising awareness of the importance of habitat conservation at Panaruban, where the Javan Hawk-eagle is found. In April, the team was actively campaigning for conservation of this important habitat that is under threat of development. Read more...

EUROPE

Bat survey in the Slovensky Raj National Park, Slovakia (Bronze Award 2003)
The bat team has been working very hard in the field the past months to survey bat hibernation sites in Slovensky Raj. From December 2003 to the end of February 2004, 29 potential hibernation sites (caves, abysses and old shafts) were thoroughly checked and 459 individuals and 11 species were recorded. The team discovered several important sites and assessed their current and potential threats – information that is very useful for the park administration. Afterwards, the team engaged in several lectures about bats and their conservation, presented in local schools, and has been preparing a short article about the project for PAN-Parks Courier (a European magazine published by WWF and Molecaten). Team members are presently working on data processing and preparation of their final report.

LATIN AMERICA / CARIBBEAN

Karumbé Project, Uruguay (Follow-up Award 2004)
The first festival entitled “Saving the Sea Turtle” was held in La Coronilla in Rocha, Uruguay from 29 March to 4 April 2004. Numerous recreational activities took place, such as educational workshops for secondary school students, lectures and games directed to kids from 3 to 8 years of age, mural painting for children and much more. Read more...

Marsh Deer Project, Argentina (Follow-up Award 2003)
Having covered more than 54,000 hectares of the study area during 9 field campaigns, the Marsh Deer team has almost finished surveying the islands southeast of Entre Ríos Province and has started to analyze the data for marsh deer distribution. Read more...

Soul of the Andes, Argentina (Follow-up Award 2003)
The last expedition to the Argentinean Andes in search of the Andean mountain cat – the soul of the Andes – brought great satisfaction to the team. Team member, Mauro Lucherini, was able to capture images of the cat -- the first taken in Argentina in more than 20 years. Read more...

Biota of Boa Nova, Brazil (Silver Award 2003)
In order to gather important baseline information about animal and plant communities, the Boa Nova team has surveyed four study sites located in the region’s principal forest formations. The preliminary results have shown that the region, despite its intense deforestation, still contains numerous new and important species. Read more...

Alder Amazon, Argentina (Bronze Award 2003)
The Alder Amazon project recently concluded their research, which is contributing new knowledge about Alder Amazon (Amazona tucumana) population levels throughout its distribution range in Argentina. The team recorded 5387 individuals in 12 of 18 localities, 7 of which are new localities for the species. Read more...

Seabirds, Argentina (Bronze Award 2003)
After almost a year of monthly visits to various seaports, the Seabirds team became well known and popular with the local fishermen and organizations involved in conservation. As a result of the increased interest in the team’s work by the general public, the team was interviewed by local media and had an article published in a local paper. Read more...

Final Reports Received

These recently concluded projects have had some exciting results. For a copy of the full report, send an email request to bp-conservation-programme@birdlife.org.uk or telephone +44 (0) 1223.277.318.

Project Websites

Check out project websites for updated news and images from award winning teams in the field: