10 May 2017 WORLD MIGRATORY BIRD DAY: FACE PROMOTES WATERBIRD MONITORING AND WETLAND RESTORATION

This year, the European Federation for Hunting and Conservation (FACE) is celebrating World Migratory Bird Day as a means to promote the recently established Waterbird Fund. FACE is calling on those who sustainably use and conserve waterbirds to contribute to this important Fund to ensure that we better understand the status of our migratory waterbird populations.

The FACE Biodiversity Manifesto demonstrates that hunters are already actively involved in managing and creating wetlands that are important for migratory birds in Europe. However, monitoring – long-term, repeated data collection – is the foundation for managing and understanding wetlands and the species they support. For hunters, the Waterbird Fund will help to ensure that we have a solid understanding European waterbird management proprieties. Good monitoring data are essential to develop sustainable hunting frameworks, such as adaptive harvest management, which are already proving to be successful in Europe.

According to Dr. David Scallan, FACE’s Senior Conservation Manager: “The need to promote and implement sustainable harvest frameworks is a fundamental part of ensuring sustainable use. The Waterbird Fund provides a way to ensure that we have quality data on population sizes and trends for huntable waterbird populations in Europe”.

FACE is one of a number of organisations within the African-Eurasian Waterbird Monitoring Partnership helping to promote this Fund. The Waterbird Fund can be supported via its website: www.waterbird.fund

Finally, FACE will continue to work hard to ensure better implementation of the provisions of the Birds Directive via the recently published EU action plan on the nature directives. Some of the key areas of interest to European hunters include updating the “Key concepts document on the period of reproduction and prenuptial migration of huntable bird Species in the EU”. FACE is also engaging with the Commission and other stakeholders to ensure effective approaches are taken to conserve and manage Europe’s goose populations in line with the provisions of the Birds Directive.

Download the Press Release here.