NewsLink is grateful to the following sponsors for their support:

Association of State
Wetland Managers


International Affairs, Office of U.S Fish & Wildlife Service

U.S. National Ramsar Committee

USFWS
Preliminary Data Shows Americans Spent $120 Billion on Wildlife Related Recreation in 2006 Click here for this report in PDF format.

RAMSAR
- New guidance from the Scientific Task Force on Avian Influenza has summarised practical lessons learnt from outbreaks of infection by highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1. Click here for the report in PDF format.
- Peru has designated a complex of high Andean lagoons and ponds as its 12th Wetland of International Importance.
- For more Ramsar news click here.

Rice & Waterbirds Working Group, of Waterbirds for the Americas, invites you to join the listserv in either Spanish and English. Click here.

Wetlands International

- African Flamingo Population Gravely Threatened by Industrial Development
Tata Chemicals, a division of the biggest multinational industrial conglomerate in India, is planning to build a huge soda ash plant at Lake Natron, one of the most important lakes for waterbirds in Africa. The scale of the planned development is very likely to destroy the ecosystem of the lake and drive away the breeding flamingos.
- Wetlands, Poverty Reducation and Sustainable Tourism Development - Brochure
Tourism is a principal source of income for 83% of the developing countries; wetlands like coasts, rivers and lakes play a vital part in this success. The development of tourism is increasingly considered as a solution to poverty in wetland areas, Click here for the brochure in PDF format.
- Carbon Stocks in Peatlands: A Vital Gap in the Carbon Market
While billions of dollars are being invested worldwide to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, no international mechanism exists to prevent the release of huge quantities of precious carbon stocks currently stored in wetlands, especially peatlands. Click here to read the full article.

- Request for Help: Neotropical Waterbird Information - for the Americas
Wetlands International started a Project "Mapping waterbird distribution and migratory routes in the Neotropics" to contribute with the "Wild Bird GlobalAvian Influenza Network for Surveillance (GAINS)." The goal is to compile data about key neotropical aquatic species from all South American countries. All information (published or unpublished) will be included. Request: if you have any details of the following species: Cygnus melancorypha (Black-necked Swan), Anas platalea (Red Shoveler), Limosa haemastica (Hudsonian Godwit), Tringa flavipes (Lesser Yellowlegs) and Chroicocephalus [Larus] cirrocephalus (Grey-hooded Gull). Information requested: date, locality (best if you could provide the coordinates), Numbers (could be both quantitative and qualitative estimations), Comments 5 of interest (e.g. abnormal concentrations, unusual places, migratory flocks, etc.). Send information to Ignacio Roesler at: mailto:kiniroesler@yahoo.com [This request is forwarded on behalf of La Tangara]

Bustling Shanghai to Turn Suburb Into Wetlands
18 July 2007, Planet Ark, Shanghi - China's financial hub is planning to set aside 15 sq km (6 sq miles) of its suburbs as wetlands to improve the quality of its water, a major priority nationwide, state media said on Tuesday.

Conservationists Fear Tanzania Flamingos Threatened
17 July 2007, Voices of America, by Nick Wadhams - Conservation groups are up in arms about a proposal to build a soda ash plant on the shores of a lake in Tanzania that is among the world's most important flamingo breeding grounds. The plant would be constructed by Lake Natron Resources, a subsidiary of the giant Indian conglomerate Tata Chemicals, to mine 500,000 tons of soda ash, or sodium carbonate, each year.

China Says Climate change Drying up Major Rivers
16 July 2007, Reuters, Beijing - Chinese scientists have warned that rising temperatures are draining wetlands at the head of the country's two longest rivers, choking their flow and imperilling water supplies to hundreds of millions of people.

Watson: Bird Hunting a Concern [Barbados]
16 July 2007, NationNews.Com, by Julie Wilson - A staggering 20,000 migratory birds are shot by "wildfowlers" [bird shooters] in Barbados every year. Between ten and 15 per cent of the approximately 300 000 migratory birds that pass through this country from North America were the shooters' target.

Seeking Cause and Cure for Ailing Wetlands [New York, USA]
15 July 2007, The New York Times, by Tim Wacker - A phenomenon commonly called sudden wetland dieback has denuded hundreds of acres of salt marsh in more urban environs like Jamaica Bay in Queens over the past decade. But its recent and aggressive advance across the New York area — and especially into more pristine environs like the North Fork — has some scientists worrying about what might happen if it keeps spreading.

Duck Numbers up Slightly Overall [USA]
11 July 2007, Ducks Unlimited, by Mike Checkett – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released its preliminary report on mid-continent breeding ducks and habitats, based on surveys conducted in May. Overall, duck populations increased 14 percent since last year with an estimated 41.2 million breeding ducks on the surveyed area. As a result of winter snowfall and good precipitation, habitat conditions are similar or slightly improved compared to conditions in 2006.

Golf Courses Considered as Wildlife Sanctuaries [USA]
11 July 2007, MSNBC - "There are more than 17,000 golf courses in the United States, and approximately 70 percent of that land is not used for playing," said Ray Semlitsch, a biologist at University of Missouri-Columbia." Semlitsch and others suggest buffering aquatic habitats from chemical runoff, surrounding wetland areas with a strip of forest or natural grassland and creating a diversity of pond types that mimic natural wetlands.

Mangroves - Key to Coastal Protection [India]
9 July 2007, Environment-India, by Max Martin, Kannur, Kerala - Amid resort construction, sand mining and other assaults on the delicate coast, it is local conservation initiatives, such as restoring the mangrove forests, that offer any hope that the natural contours of Kerala, a rain-washed coastal strip, will stay intact.

Aymaras Vow Mining Co. Will Restore Wetland [Bolivia]
4 July 2007, Inter Press Agency, by Daniela Estrada - The Aymara community of Cancosa on the Chilean Altiplano region of Tarapacá, bordering Bolivia, will spare no effort in its struggle to rehabilitate a wetland dried out by the Cerro Colorado Mining Company (CMCC),

Climate Deals Turn Up Heat in Indonesia's Dark Peatlands
3 July 2007, Planet Ark, Palangakaraya, Indonesia - It used to be malaria that gave people fevers in Indonesia's remote, mosquito-infested peatlands. Now it is carbon.

6,000-year-old Arctic Ponds Drying Out [Canada]
2 July 2007, TheStar.com, Bob Weber, Canadian Press, Edmunton – A series of ponds on the Arctic tundra that have formed a crucial component of Ellesmere Island's ecosystem for 6,000 years have largely dried up and blown away in a single generation, says new research that suggests climate change may be affecting the North faster than anyone thought.

Wild Bird Culls Not Avian Flu Answer, Say Scientists
30 June 2007, Scotsman.com News, John Ross - Scientists have condemned culls of wild birds as a way of tackling outbreaks of avian flu. They say that while wild birds have been infected in some cases, domestic birds, the poultry industry and the trade in live and dead poultry hold the key roles in limiting any spread of the disease in future.

Sudan: Africa's New Serengeti
25 June 2007, Newsweek International, by Alexander Polier- Sudan - once the site of heavy fighting but long since abandoned, serve as a safe haven to almost a million white-eared kob and hundreds of thousands of antelope, numbers that rival those of Africa's Serengeti. Fay thinks that Sudan could turn out to support the biggest animal migration in Africa.

Uganda: Destruction of Wetlands Has Endangered the Shoebill
24 June 2007 - New Vision, John Kasozi, Kampala - The continued destruction of wetlands and capture for trade has dealt a severe blow to the shoebill. The shoebill's breeding nature - two eggs in five years - may make its population never recover unless their breeding places are tightly protected.

Millions of Missing Birds, Vanishing in Plain Sight
19 June 2007, New York Times - The Audubon Society has released a new report describing the sharp and startling population decline of some of the most familiar and common birds in America: several kinds of sparrows, the Northern bobwhite, the Eastern meadowlark, the common grackle and the common tern. The average decline of the 20 species in the Audubon Society’s report is 68 percent.

Familiar Backyard Birds on Decline — Down 50% Over Last 40 Years [USA]
19 June 2007, IWire, by William Atkins - Based on a new National Audubon Society study, there are 432 million fewer birds today in 2007 than there were 40 years ago in 1967.

Wetlands Loan Act is Reintroduced in Congress [USA]
18 June 2007, Ducks Unlimited, Washington, DC – In an effort to have wetland conservation keep pace with soaring land prices, Congressman Mike Thompson (CA) introduced legislation to eauthorize the Wetlands Loan Act Friday.

A Holistic Approach Needed to Preserve Wetlands
16 June 2007, Statesman News Service, Kolkata - The state fisheries minister Mr Kironmoy Nanda said that the lack of a comprehensive plan for the preservation of wetlands, was threatening their very existence in the state.

Montana Birds Send Warning About Our Water and Wetlands
14 June 2007, Montana Audubon - Great Blue Herons have declined 81% in Montana since 1967; the Blue-winged Teal, a small duck has declined 72%; the killdeer, a shorebird that often inhabits urban parks and ponds, is down 80%; the Belted Kingfisher is down 88%; and a colorful songster, the American Redstart, is down 88%. For more information contact http://mtaudubon.org/

Common Bird Species in Dramatic Decline
15 June 2007, Christian Science Monitor, by Mark Clayton - A new Audubon study is one of the most comprehensive looks at bird-population trends in North America. New data show the populations of some of America's well-known birds in a tailspin, thanks to the one-two punch of habitat fragmentation and, increasingly, global warming. Twenty common bird species tracked by the National Audubon Society have seen their numbers fall 54 percent overall since 1967, with some down about 80 percent.

American Buys Slices of South America
11 June 2007, Central Florida News - The American multimillionaire who founded the North Face and Esprit clothing lines says he is trying to save the planet by buying bits of it. First Douglas Tompkins purchased a huge swath of southern Chile, and now he's hoping to save the northeast wetlands of neighboring Argentina. He has snapped up more than half a million acres of the Esteros del Ibera, a vast Argentine marshland teeming with wildlife.

A Struggling Sea [California, USA]
11 June 2007, High Country News, by Morgan Heim - The Salton Sea, one of California’s largest lakes and a safe haven for thousands of migratory birds, is suffering a case of severe dehydration. Water loss and rising salinity and nutrient concentrations have endangered this saltwater lake in southeastern California.

Native ’Ua’u Population Steadily Increasing on Island of Lanai [Hawaii, USA]
10 June 2007, The Maui News, by Edwin Tanji, Lanai, Hawaii – A team of researchers reports that a previously little-known population of an endangered native seabird, the ’ua’u, or Hawaiian dark-rumped petrel, has been steadily growing on the slopes of Lanaihale on the island of Lanai. “Nobody dreamed in their wildest dreams that there was this sort of thing...”

Judge Overturns Delaware Ban on Horseshoe Crab Harvest [USA]
9 June 2007, Newsday.com, Georgetown, Delaware - A judge has struck down Delaware's two-year ban on harvesting horseshoe crabs in Delaware Bay, saying the crustaceans' population is healthy enough to allow a limited harvest. The ruling is "extremely disappointing," said Michael Parr, vice president of the American Bird Conservancy. "The court has put the profits of a very small number of fishermen over the interests of the people of Delaware," Parr said.

Bald Eagle Soaring 'Success,' But At What Cost? [USA]
7 June 2007, CNN, by Peggy Mihelich - The bald eagle is officially about to become a "conservation success story" for the U.S. government, which has worked for more than three decades to help the national symbol recover from habitat destruction, illegal shooting and contamination of its food source.

Research Confirms Extent of Europe’s Disappearing Farmland Birds
7 June 2007, BirdLife International - New research has shown that Europe’s farmland birds have declined by almost 50% in the past 25 years; a trend caused by EU-wide agricultural intensification... Across Europe as a whole from 1980 to 2005, common farmland birds have on average fallen in number by 44%–the most severe decline of the bird categories monitored.

Virginia: Tidal Wetlands May See Big Loss [USA]
7 June 2007, Daily Press, by Patrick Lynch – Virginia could lose 50 percent to 80 percent of its tidal wetlands this century as the rising sea level overwhelms marsh grasses, a Norfolk-based group said Wednesday. Sea level has risen about one foot per century around Hampton Roads ever since English settlers landed at Jamestown.

EPA Makes It Harder to Protect Wetlands [USA]
5 June 2007, Newsday.com by H. Josef Hebert, Washington - The Bush administration made it harder Tuesday for non-permanent streams and nearby wetlands to be protected under the federal Clean Water Act. For such waters to be protected there must be a "significant nexus" shown between the intermittent stream or wetland and a traditional waterway.

Scientists Look at Endangered Red Knots
4 June 2007, inRich.com, Willis Wharf, Virginia - Researchers are teaming up to study red knots as the migratory birds stop by Virginia's isolated Eastern Shore on their way from Argentina to the Arctic. Scientists say the medium-sized shorebird could be extinct by 2015.

28 - 30 August
Association of State Wetland Managers 2007 Conference: "Watershed Strategies to Protect and Restore Wetland Ecological and Social Services."
Williamsburg, Virginia, USA. Click here

September
3 - 6 September
International Conference on Environmental Flows
Brisbane, Australia. The Nature Conservancy and the River Symposium are co-conveners. Click here

New
3 - 6 September
3rd International Conference on Water and Climate
Helsinki, Finland.

12 - 16 September
2007 Joint Meeting of the Raptor Research Foundation and the Hawk Migration Association of North America (HMANA)
Fogelsville, Pennsylvania, USA. Click here

16 - 20 September
WETPOL 2007 - 2nd International Symposium on Wetland Pollutant Dynamics and Control
Tartu, Estonia. Click here

12 September - 23 October
The International Course on African Wetland Management (ICAWM) 6-week Course
Naivasha, Kenya, by the Kenya Wildlife Service Training Institute. ICAWM is designed for middle-level managers who are actively involved in either inland or coastal wetland management. Participants may be wetlands, wildlife, environment, water resource, forestry or fisheries officers as well as resource planners in the county councils and officers from non-governmental organizations within or outside Africa. Click here.

22 - 26 September
The 14th Annual Conference of The Wildlife Society
Tucson, Arizona, USA. Click here

27 - 29 September
26th Annual Meeting of the Society of Canadian Ornithologists
Lake Opinicon, Ontario at the Queen's University Biological Station. Click here

28 September – 1 October
International Water Study Group Annual Conference
La Rochelle, France. Two workshops on Black-tailed Godwits and Oystercatchers are possible.

October

1 - 17 October
International Course on Environmental Impact Assessment and Strategic Environmental Assessment for Wetland Management
Panama City, Panama. This is a an intensive seventeen-day course as part of the Regional Training Program for Wetlands in the Western Hemisphere. The course is intended for decision-makers and mid-level officials from governmental and non-governmental organizations, the private sector and international agencies who are involved in wetlands-related activities. The course is taught in Spanish. Click here

5 - 6 October
Peatland Management and Climate Change
Freising, Germany. Click here

New
11 October
Bird Conservation Alliance National Meeting
The Nature Conservancy, Arlington, Virginia, USA

22 - 26 October
The 8th Pacific Islands Conference on Nature Conservation and Protected Areas, "Conservation Serving Communities"
Alotau, Papua New Guinea. Click here

28 October - 2 November
12th World Lakes Conference
Jaipur (Rajasthan), India. Organised by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, New Delhi, and co-hosted by the Government of Rajasthan. The Conference will be held at Jaipur (Rajasthan) the Pink City, 260 km from New Delhi. Click here

30 October - 3 November
The 31st Annual Meeting of the Waterbird Society
Barcelona, Spain.

31 October - 4 November
World Owl Conference: Owls, Ambassadors for the Protection of Nature in their Changing Landscape
Groningen, The Netherlands. Hosted by Birdlife International in The Netherlands, the Global Owl Project and the World Owl Trust. Click here


November

3rd North American Sea Duck Conference
Québec City, Canada. Hosted by the Canadian Wildlife Service (Québec Region), in partnership with the non-profit organization Regroupement Québec Oiseaux.

New
26 - 30 November
XI Conference of the Mesoamerican Society for Biology and Conservation
Cocoyoc, Morelos, Mexico.


December

2 - 5 December
Australasian Ornithological Conference
Perth, Western Australia, held jointly between Birds Australia and the Ornithological Society of New Zealand at the University of Western Australia.

New
3 - 5 December
The 4th biennial Australasian Ornithological Conference
University of Western Australia in Perth, Australia.

2008

January

New
9 - 11 January
International Conference on Managing Wetlands for Sustainable Development: Innovative Research and Lessons Learned, Effective Partnerships, and the Need for Co-Management
Thumrin Thana Hotel, Trang, Thailand. For more details email: visa.s@psu.ac.th.


February

13 - 16 February
4th International Partners in Flight Conference: Tundra to Tropics
McAllen, Texas. McAllen Convention Center. Contact Terry rich for more information: terry_rich@fws.gov.

New
13 February
Bird Conservation Alliance Regional Meeting
McAllen, Texas, USA.


March

New
3 - 6 March
6th Mangrove Forest Ecology, Management and Restoration Training Course
Hollywood, Florida. For further informatio contact Robin Lewis at: LESRRL3@AOL.COM

New
5-8 March
XII Argentinean Meeting on Ornithology
San Martin de los Andes, province of Neuquen,Argentina. Contact: info@rao.org.ar


April

New
7 - 11 April
4th Global Conference on Oceans, Coasts and Islands: Advancing ecosystem management by 2010 and integrated coastal and ocean management
Hanoi, Vietnam

17 - 20 April
The Wilson Ornithological Society and the Association of Field Ornithologists Annual Meetings
Hattiesburg, Mississippi, USA, at the University of Southern Mississippi. Click here

May

12 - 16 May
10th International Conference on Salt Lake Research
Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. Hosted by The International Society of Salt Lake Research (ISSLR). Co-sponsors include FRIENDS of Great Salt Lake, Utah State University, The University of Utah, and U.S. Geological Survey. Click here

June

9 – 15 June
13th International Peat Congress After Wise Use: The Future of Peatlands
Tullamore, Ireland. Click here

14 June - 14 September 2008
Expo Zaragoza 2008: Water and Sustainable Development
Zaragoza, Spain. For more informat about this three-month public event, featuring a specially-constructed “Water Tower” click here

July

13 - 18 July
22nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology
Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA. Hosted by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences. To be held at the Chattanooga Convention Center. More information to come.

August 2008

New
4 - 9 August
The American Ornithologists' Union, Cooper Ornithological Society, and Society of Canadian Ornithologists
Portland, Oregon, USA.

October 28 - November 4
10th Conference of the Parties to the Ramsar Convention
Changwon, Republic of Korea. Click here



2009

March 2009
New
March (tentative)
The Wilson Ornithological Society and the Association of Field Ornithologists annual meetings.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.


August 2010

New
22 - 28 August
The 25th International Ornithological Congress
Campos do Jordão, Brazil.

The End
1 August 2007