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Twenty-six participants from eighteen West Indian islands and two Caribbean rim countries took part in the SCSCB’s five-day Bird Monitoring Training Workshop at the Bahamas National Trust in Nassau, Bahamas, 19-23 February. The participants included Executive Directors of NGOs in charge of protected areas, ornithologists, and conservation biologists employed to governments and NGOs, protected area wardens and volunteers. All shared a common interest in learning monitoring methodologies and how to use the results from monitoring to more effectively conserve and manage migratory and resident bird species. The eight facilitators included Floyd Hayes (Professor, Pacific College, California), Frank Rivera-Milán (US Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington, DC), Geoff Welch (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, UK), Jeff Gerbracht (Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, New York), John Alexander (Executive Director, Klamath Bird Observatory, Oregon), Arne Lesterhuis (Wetlands International, Buenos Aires), Ann Haynes-Sutton (Monitoring Coordinator, SCSCB, Jamaica) and Lisa Sorenson (President, SCSCB, Boston).

The workshop included a complete introduction to designing, implementing, analyzing and reporting basic bird monitoring programmes in the region. With the assistance of the team of facilitators and other experts in the field, SCSCB is developing simple standard protocols for monitoring landbirds, wetland birds, seabirds and shorebirds and their habitats. These were presented and tested during field sessions at the workshop. The participants committed to share their experiences and train others in their islands. To facilitate this process all the materials from the workshop will be made available online, and a manual “Caribbean Birdwatch - How to design and implement a bird monitoring programme in the Caribbean” will be produced. At the end of the workshop participants and presenters agreed that the workshop had been an overwhelming success and pledged to continue to work to promote its objectives.

The workshop was the main output of a project called “Long-term Bird Monitoring in the Caribbean – Why, What, Where and How?” which is being funded by the Organization of American States through the Western Hemisphere Migratory Species Initiative (WHMSI). The goal of this project is to establish a Caribbean partnership to promote migratory bird monitoring as a means to improve science-based conservation planning and adaptive management of birds in the region. Other products of the project will include a database of bird monitoring programmes in the region, a capacity building strategy, follow-up projects and strengthening of the SCSCB’s Monitoring Working Group.

Contact persons: Dr. Ann Sutton and Dr. Lisa Sorenson.