2011 conference: workshops
Workshops will be held at various times during the conference:
Workshop 1 - Measuring the timing and duration of primary moult (using the Underhill & Zucchini method on R). (Sunday Evening) Leader Les Underhill.
Workshop 2 - Population sizes and trends of waders in Africa and Western Eurasia (all Monday). Leader David Stroud.
In 2004, WSG published the results of a comprehensive assessment of the sizes and trends of wader populations in Africa and western Eurasia. This assessment, based on data from the late 1990s, was very influential in informing a wide range of conservation policy processes, including for the Ramsar Convention (via Waterbird Population Estimates), and for Europe via Bird Life International’s Birds in Europe 3. It also highly informed the Wader Flyway Atlaspublished by Wetlands International in 2009.
In the period to 2014, the European BirdLife partners are working with EU Member States to develop a new assessment of sizes and trends of all birds in Europe. It is timely thus for WSG to stimulate the collation of data and information on waders not only within the EU, but in surrounding areas (Africa, Middle East and Central Asia). This will allow re-assessment of flyway-scale estimates for as many species as possible. The review process will not only involve analysis of data from the International Waterbird Census, but crucially, the collation of scattered data from grey literature such as expedition reports to more remote areas.
The 2004 review identified many questions where understanding of populations and their limits are severely lacking ( Table 16). The current review will seek new information in relation to these and other issues.
The WSG workshop will be a working meeting to help plan review. It will have the following aims:
- To review overall population changes since the 1990s for the three flyways concerned (East Atlantic, Black Sea/Mediterranean, and West Asia/East Africa)
- To review current limits of flyway populations especially issues where understanding of population identity or delineation is poor
- To identify sources of data and information that may be helpful to the review processes but which may not be already collated/accessible
- For flyways where count data will always be limited, to consider the potential for novel types of analysis that may maximise information to be drawn from this existing data
- To plan a review process with the aim of publishing a complete reassessment in 2014 – a decade after WSG’s previous review
The workshop will be highly interactive! It is not intended to have a series of ‘sit and listen’ presentations, but following initial introduction of issues, rather to work in groups to consider existing information and its interpretation either for individual species, for groups of species, or for geographic regions/flyways. To this end, the organisers would be very grateful for volunteers to help prepare information prior to the workshop and to lead group discussions at it. Please contact David Stroud with offers of help!
