Nial Moores

Wetland and Waterbird Conservation Work in the Yellow Sea Eco-Region

Town/RegionCountryCategoriesDate
Yellow Sea Eco-RegionKorea, Republic ofAsia, Birds, Community, Education14 Aug 2001

The Yellow Sea is listed as one of the world's 200 most important eco-regions. It supports many globally threatened waterbird species in significant concentrations. However the area is threatened by tidal-flat conversion into rice-fields and industrial complexes, reduced freshwater inflows through damming and water extraction, pollution and over exploitation. There are few effectively managed protected areas, and most local communities , although they often depend on the sea's productivity for their livelihoods, do not know of or support wetland conservation initiatives.

This project seeks to develop public awareness raising and educational materials, and begin to identify and train a network of wetland educators - in schools, universities and local communities - who can advise on approaches in wetland "wise use" and species conservation.

Project Update: December 2001

Wetlands and Birds Korea were awarded a small grant, to assist in developing an educators network and the creation of educational materials for promoting the conservation of the Yellow Sea, one of the world's most valuable but threatened ecoregions.

The grant has contributed so far to funding survey work and meetings with key individuals; it has paid for much work on our home-page;it has been used to help in the production of a promotional video on wetlands and bird conservation; and the remainder will be usedto cover the costs of further production and distribution of educational materials planned, we hope,for later in the year.

Although still evolving, our home-page is already the most frequently visited nature conservation site in South Korea on the web. We will register it with listservers in the next couple of months, and expect traffic to increase considerably at that time. Presently, we are in the process of adding modified Korean and English versions of our 150-page long "Yellow Sea Ecoregion Reconnaissance Report" (produced in partnership with Wetlands-International China Program and WWF-Japan early in 2001). The report, the first NGO-written and accessible review of the natural resources of the region, will contribute greatly to deepening peoples' understanding of the Yellow Sea's plight.

Also funded by the grant we have surveyed many wetlands and waterbirds in South Korea, and given numerous day-long "eco-tours" and teacher training sessions at or near such sites, thus raising public awareness and helping in the identification of key educators.

Although some have already been produced, our work on developing education materials (laminated sheets etc) has been somewhat delayed by WBK's need to take the lead in internationalising the campaign to oppose the world's largest ongoing coastal reclamation, that of the 40,100 ha Saemankeum project on the South Korean west coast, and in advising (unfunded of course!) on several other projects. Education materials should therefore be produced later in the year, and used when we resurvey many sites in the winter.

2nd RSG Grant Award

Read about the latest development with Nial's work with birds http://www.ruffordsmallgrants.org/rsg/projects/nial_moores


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