On
22 April, the Society for the Conservation and Study of
Caribbean Birds (SCSCB), the largest single regional
organisation devoted to wildlife conservation, launched the
7th annual Caribbean Endemic Bird Festival (CEBF) which runs
from 22 April to 22 May 2008. This year, the month-long
Festival, supported by environmental organizations across
the Caribbean, crucial trans-national links that exist for
birds moving between temperate and tropical regions.
The purpose of the Festival over its 6-year history has been
to increase public awareness of the region’s exceptionally
rich and threatened bird life, using the Caribbean's
celebrated endemic birds as flagships of conservation.
In launching this year's Festival, Andrew Dobson, President
of the SCSCB, described the focus of the Festival as "the
hard reality of conservation work." Dobson emphasized that
the conservation of birds will always require cooperation,
because wild animals, unlike people, do not recognize
political and cultural boundaries. Dobson noted that unless
representative habitats, not just in some countries, but
across the region were systematically conserved, the
conservation of many migratory species would fail. "If the
historical resting, feeding, and breeding grounds for
migratory birds are destroyed by this generation, we are
leaving other generations to see species only in our
published records," Dobson said. According to Dobson the
time was overdue for greater collaboration and exchange
between both government and non-government agencies (both
regionally and internationally) to improve environmental
education and safeguard habitats for species, especially
given the additional and growing threat of global climate
change.
Maurice Anselme, Director of the Regional Activity Centre of
the SPAW Protocol, the only region-wide environmental treaty
that protects critical marine and coastal ecosystems,
remarked that, in keeping with the theme, it was vital that
our discussions about conserving Caribbean species
underscore the importance of how interdependent people are
to the region’s natural habitats and its wildlife including
its birds. “It’s all about our natural resources and how
they are working for us in watershed and shoreline
protection, waste recycling, and maintaining the beauty of
the islands,” Anselme noted. “We have to internalize and get
the message out that working for birds is about dollars,
sense, and maintaining our way of life as Caribbean people.
Until we all understand that, we are going to have
environmental problems,” Anselme remarked.
Regional organisers believe that this year’s Festival will
be largest to date with over 35 000 people expect to take
part in events occurring throughout the Wider Caribbean. In
Anguilla, the Anguilla National Trust has organised a series
of activities to mark this important event. Festival
activities began on 22 April (coinciding with Earth Day
which fell on this day) with a photo exhibit of Anguilla’s
wetlands and important bird areas as well as of the island’s
spectacular bird life. With local photographers contributing
their work, the exhibit is being held at three locations
across Anguilla: Hibernia Restaurant and Art Gallery in
Island Harbour (open from 11.30am-2.00pm Wednesday through
Saturday and from 6.00pm until closing Wednesday through
Sunday), Zurra Restaurant at Temenos Golf Club, and the
Public Library in the Valley. Prints will be available for
sale. A wetland bird count of all 25 of the island’s
saltponds is scheduled to take place from 23 to 25 April
while a guided hike along Anguilla’s north coast has been
planned for the ALHCS Environmental Club for 10 May. A
public viewing of David Attenborough’s The Life of Birds:
Fishing for a Living will take place on 8 May 2008 at 6.30pm
at the Teacher’s Resource Centre.
For more information about the CEBF or the events and
activities planned for the Festival, please visit the ANT
office in The Valley or call 497 5297.
