April 2017
Announcing the 2017 CLP award winners!
Executive Manager's Message

It gives me great pleasure to announce the winners of the 2017 CLP Awards! The quality of applications was excellent and our expert judges spent significant time deliberating over the shortlist of highly competitive proposals. We are funding 19 projects, during which winning teams will spend time in a variety of sites ranging from desert mountains to tropical reefs, collecting and contributing new data and engaging with key stakeholders and delivering conservation actions to conserve priority species and threatened habitats. For the first time in CLP’s 32-year history, we are funding a team in Oman, which will be working to conserve the Arabian dragon tree. Read reactions of some of our award winners and view a list of all 19 funded projects.

In recent months, teams that CLP has previously funded have reported some outstanding results. These include the discovery of a new species of frog whose call closely resembles that of a kingfisher, and the successful fledging of blue-throated macaw chicks from artificial nest boxes, which is improving the survival chances of this Critically Endangered bird. Along with conservation success stories, you can also find plenty of other CLP alumni accomplishments to cheer!

Stuart Paterson
Executive Manager

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Where Are They Now?

In 2001, the Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP) funded a project led by Vu Dinh Thong to study the diversity and status of bats in Vietnam’s Bach Ma National Park. This award provided the spark that ignited his latent interest in conservation. Five years later, Thong received further support for his bat conservation work, this time in Cat Ba Biosphere Reserve. Today, he is an acknowledged expert on Vietnam’s bats and their conservation.

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IN THIS ISSUE
Executive Manager's Message
Where Are They Now?
Alumni Accomplishments
Upcoming Events
Conservation in Action
Final Reports
Alumni Publications
Project Websites
Alumni Accomplishments

Orume Robinson completed his Masters degree at James Cook University. 

Alice Reisfeld reports that SAVE Brazil has raised over $110,000 to support activities related to its 2014 CLP project.

Szilárd Bücs is now part of the IUCN Bat Specialist Group. 

Read more accomplishments

Upcoming Events

9-14 July 2017: Annual Meeting of the Association of Tropical Biology and Conservation - Mexico

23-27 July 2017: International Congress for Conservation Biology - Colombia

11-13 Oct 2017: Student Conference on Conservation Science - USA

Conservation in Action

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Final Reports

Conserving Endangered silvery-brown tamarin in highly degraded forests, Colombia (2014)

Promoting conservation of threatened birds in western Colombia (2014)

Promoting conservation through ecotourism and education in Serra do Urubu Important Bird Area, Brazil (2014)

Unravelling the occupancy patterns of Guiana dolphin in south-eastern Brazil (2014)

Status surveys of threatened focal species in the Magdalena Medio (2014)

Preventing extinction of the Critically Endangered blue-throated macaw, Bolivia (2014)

Conservation of sandbar shark breeding habitat in Boncuk Cove, Turkey (2015)

Conserving Ophiocordyceps sinensis in the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve, India (2015)

Read final report summaries

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Alumni Publications

Agaldo, J. A., Gwom, T. G., & Apeverga, P. T. (2016). An assessment of present threats and associated conservation implication to the Oban division Forest Cross river national park; Nigeria’s biodiversity hotspot. Ethiopian Journal of Environmental Studies and Management, 9(2): 938-950.

In recent years the Oban Division of Cross River National Park has received little research attention on its conservation status and species composition. It is known to be one of the most biodiversity-rich protected areas in West Africa. Hence current knowledge of its status is necessary for making informed management decisions for the continuous and improved protection of the area. This study sought to provide recent information on the conservation status of the area and its species. We used reconnaissance survey to assess present threats associated with the area and related this to encounter rate of faunal species in the area. Thirteen potential present threats to the area and its species were recognised. The encounter rate of primate species was 0.373 per km2, while mammals and large birds had an encounter rate of 1.148 km2 and 1.234 km2 respectively. Low encounter rates of these faunal groups suggests their population is declining in the area. Hence protection measures need to be improved in this important remaining forest in Nigeria to protect its species from continuous decline and its integrity as Nigeria’s biodiversity hotspot.

Cáceres, A., Melo, M., Barlow, J., de Lima, R.F., & Mills, M.S.L. (2017) Drivers of bird diversity in an understudied African centre of endemism: The Angolan Central Escarpment Forest. Bird Conservation International, 1-13. doi:10.1017/S0959270917000119.

Natural habitats are being rapidly lost due to human activities. It is therefore vital to understand how these activities influence biodiversity so that suitable guidelines can be established for conservation. This is particularly important in understudied, high biodiversity, areas such as the Angolan Escarpment. Here we examine which habitat characteristics drive bird diversity and endemic species presence at Kumbira Forest, a key site in the Central Escarpment Forest. Bird diversity was sampled by 10 min bird point counts, whereas habitat characteristics were measured by a combination of ground-based vegetation surveys and remotely sensed data modelling of Landsat images. GLM, multi-model inference and model averaging were used to determine the most important variables driving species richness and the presence of endemics. The remote sensing variables performed poorly in predicting presence of red-crested turaco Tauraco erythrolophus and Gabela bushshrike Laniarius amboimensis but they contributed significantly to explain species richness and Gabela akalat Sheppardia gabela presence, both of which were associated with greater canopy cover. Liana density and elevation were also important explanatory variables in certain cases. Conservation actions at Kumbira should focus on increasing canopy cover and maintaining forest integrity (as measured by liana density), as these actions are likely to have the most positive outcomes for the avifauna.

Lwin, N., Linkie, M., Harihar, A., Aung, S., Lin, A., & Momberg, F. (2016) Initiating conservation of a newly discovered population of the Endangered hog deer Axis porcinus in Myanmar. Oryx, 1-8. doi:10.1017/S0030605316000727

The unprecedented political and economic reforms taking place in Myanmar offer new opportunities for biodiversity conservation. They also bring new challenges in the form of rapidly growing extractive industry and agriculture sectors that have been weakly regulated and are often unsustainable. The Endangered hog deer Axis porcinus epitomises many of these conservation challenges, and those facing most deer species in the Indo–Burma hotspot. The hog deer has disappeared from large parts of its range as a result of overhunting and intense conversion of its floodplain grassland habitat for agriculture. We report on a population of hog deer that was discovered in the Indawgyi landscape in central Myanmar in 2012. We conducted the first rigorous assessment of a hog deer population in Myanmar using an occupancy sampling protocol, tested the protocol's robustness using a power analysis, and present the results to guide management intervention. The results from our study site revealed widespread occurrence of the species, with high precision…

See all alumni publications

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Project Websites

Aaranyak (India) | Applied Environmental Research Foundation (India) | Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (India) | Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity in Kazakhstan | Bat Census in Crimean Caves (Ukraine) | Birds-Indonesia | BirdLife Zimbabwe | Bombay Natural History Society (India) | Calidris (Colombia) | Community Centered Conservation (C3 - Comoros) | Faunagua (Bolivia) | Fundación Conserva (Colombia) | Fundación CEBio (Argentina) | Fundación Malpelo y Otros Ecosistemas Marinos (Colombia) | Guyra (Paraguay) | Istituto Oikos | Katala Foundation (Philippines) | Korup Rainforest Conservation Society (Cameroon) | Kuzeydoga (Turkey) | Life on Chalk (Ukraine) | Mabuwaya Foundation (Philippines) | Macedonian Ecological Society | Madagasikara Voakajy | Maio Biodiversity Foundation (Cape Verde) | MareCet (Malaysia) | Mediterranean Conservation Society (Turkey) | Mpingo Conservation & Development Initiative (Tanzania) | The Mobula Project (Indonesia) | Nature Conservation Foundation (India) | Nature Iraq | Organisation Ecotouristique du Lac Oguemoué (Gabon) | ProDelphinus (Peru) | ProAves (Colombia) | Project Karumbé (Uruguay) | Proyecto Atelopus (Colombia) | Proyecto Washu (Ecuador) | Rivers without Boundaries Coalition (Eurasia) | Save the Frogs! Ghana | SAVE Brasil | Sea to Shore Alliance (USA) | Shanshui Conservation Center (China) | Snow Leopard Trust (International) | South Rupununi Conservation Society (Guyana) | Strizh Ecological Centre (Russia) | Tide Belize | Yelkouan Shearwater Project (Turkey) | Waterkeepers Iraq | WildlifeDirect (Kenya) | Zoo Outreach Organization (India)

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