ICF Partners with U.S. State Dept to Study Pollutants in Mekong
ICF has worked in the Mekong River Basin since 1988, coordinating community projects, long-term wetland restoration activities, and training for a new generation of wetland managers. Working with eight founding institutions, ICF created the University Network of Southeast Asia in 2001 to establish a training program in wetland ecology and management for students and professionals in the Mekong Basin. Over the past ten years, this network has grown to include 18 member universities and has trained over 200 students in wetland management. Many are now leaders in universities and conservation organizations working within the region.
The East Asian – Australasian Flyway Partnership (EAAFP) is inviting applications for the position of Chief Executive to lead the Secretariat in Incheon, Republic of Korea (Please note that deadline is extended to 30 November 2011).
Wildlife conservation is rife with attempts to maintain “pristine wilderness” as we struggle to preserve Earth’s wonderful biodiversity. Efforts to conserve many crane species, however, require a very different approach. Sarus Cranes in north India, for example, are found mostly in a heavily populated and intensively cultivated landscape in the state of Uttar Pradesh. This landscape has had very high human populations for centuries, and was converted almost entirely to smallholder farmer systems at least 300 years ago. Clearly, in such an area, attempting to get land solely for wildlife is not possible given the very high human densities (> 800 people per sq. km.!), and their need for agricultural land.
CeCe Carter Sieffert, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, and her husband Mark Sieffert are in Guizhou Province, China this fall as part of a new UW/ICF partnership at Cao Hai, a critical wintering area for over 400 Black-necked cranes in southwestern China. Following is a summary of their experiences at Cao Hai.
We often say that anyone can contribute to crane conservation. I found a new dimension to that truth on my recent visits to farms in the Wakkerstroom and Chrissiesmeer grasslands of South Africa. I had come not to see cranes, but to peer into pens of sheep and cattle. Amongst the livestock, I had to look closely for the dark noses and floppy ears of my new “colleagues” – the dogs of the indigenous breed African Maluti, originally from the Lesotho highlands, and the paler Anatolian Sheepdogs from Turkey.