Elchin Sultanov

Conservation of White headed Duck at Lake Hajigabul in Azerbaijan

Hajigabul Lake with fishponds.

Town/RegionCountryCategoriesDate
Hajigabul LakeAzerbaijanAsia, Birds, Wetlands4 Apr 2007

Azerbaijan is located along the Eurasian-African Migratory Bird Flyway connecting Central Asia to the Middle East and Africa and used by many threatened birds; among them the White headed Duck (Oxuyra leucocephala).Hajigabul Lake is one of the largest and most important wetlands in the Kura-Araz lowlands in Azerbaijan and is of key importance as wintering site for 15,000 to 25,000 waterbirds every year. And also it has importance for breeding waterbirds such as Marbled Teal, Ferruginous Duck and ets. Besides it regularly support during migration period (middle February- middle April and October-November) the same number of migratory waterbirds.

The lake lie on the migration way of waterbirds from Caspian Sea coast to inland wetlands (lakes Aggol, Sarisu et c.). The conservation of the lake is therefore an important step in the conservation of the network of sites important for the White-headed Duck as the Lake Hajigabul regularly hosts internationally important numbers (up to 1,000 i.e. >10% of the global population) of this species during migration and over winter.

The Project aims to understand the root causes of the current threats and their impact on the migratory waterfowl and improve conservation management of Lake Hajigabul based on a stakeholder-involvement approach. Also we want to increase public awareness and understanding of the site peculiarity by including key local stakeholders into project implementation and informing broader public with press work and production and dissemination of a site information poster. The multi-stakeholder group created with in the frame of project will be main and very important support for the conservation of Lake and will help to the national recognition of Lake.

For more information contact elchin_sultanov@aos.az or go to www.aos.az

Project Update: October 2007

Azerbaijan Ornithological Society (AOS) with support of Rufford Small Grants Foundation began the project “Conservation of White-headed Duck at Lake Hajigabul in Azerbaijan” from February 2007. Lake Hajigabul is main wintering habitat of Globally Threatened White-Headed Duck in Azerbaijan.

During the implementation of project a comprehensive researches for preparation of management plan of Lake Hajigabul will be conducted. Already stakeholder working group has been created and more than 10 meetings have been hold. Employeers of local Ecology Department, owner of Lake, chief of local ecological police and experts to this group have been involved. The analysis of experts gave different results which were absolutely unknown for the area. All opinions of experts, results of researches of AOS’s specialists intorduced to local community and discussed with local working group.As well the media has been informed about the problems of Lake Hajigabul. AOS is working now for the finding the ways of solutions for improvement of the situation of Lake and for preparation of draft recomandations for management plan in fiture. Last analyses will be done during the autumn and winter which will provide experts with all necessary information to identify the main threats and their impact on the Important waterfowl.

Final Report

Read more about the activities undertaken and findings of this project in the final report below.

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Detailed Final Report238 KB

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