Dear All
In response to the discussion regarding the slaughter of migratory birds in Egypt and related suggestions of boycott of tour operators, pasted below is a message from Dr Julius Arinaitwe, BirdLife International's Regional Director for Africa. He is not in this forum and requested me to send it on his behalf.
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Dear All,
Birdlife would like to confirm that there are no plans to instigate a
boycott of bird tour operators within any countries and share the sentiments
already expressed that this would be, at very least in the case of Egypt,
a counter-productive approach. BirdLife Partners in the respective
countries are fully committed to addressing this issue and any proposed boycott
would need to be a Partner-led initiative and this to my knowledge
has not been proposed. In Egypt, we are working closely with Nature
Conservation Egypt (NCE) to address the situation of illegal killing of
migrants along the northern Mediterranean coastline. The issue has been raised
by the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (following an intervention from
our German Partner NABU) with the Egyptian Ministry of Environment,
who have expressed a commitment to address the problem and work with NCE
in this regard . Furthermore, discussions are underway with the Convention of
Migratory Species /African Eurasian Waterbird Agreement about an implementation
review to investigate the scale of the issue and explore solutions with the
Egyptian government. The Birdlife Secretariat is planning to further support
NCE but clearly the political and security situation at the moment mean that it
is a very challenging environment in which to take things forward and we have
to be patient during such a difficult political period for the country.
We fully appreciate how very frustrating and difficult it is to see the
scenes of illegal killing and trapping of protected and declining species
across the flyway. As well as protecting species of conservation concern and
preventing extinctions, Birdlife is fully committed to keeping common birds
common. We have recently increased our outputs in this field to counteract the
apparent increase in illegal killing and will continue to work with our
partners to address the issues both regionally and through appropriate advocacy
channels within the countries of concern. We really appreciate your support in
this complex arena but please bear with us as making real differences on
the ground can be a protracted process but Birdlife are fully committed to
making this happen.
Dr Julius Arinaitwe
Regional Director for Africa, BirdLife International