Flyway and Wetland Site Manager Workshop in East and Southeast Asia was held in Jakarta, Indonesia on 25-29 August to share information and experience. It was co-organised by the EAAFP and the Ramsar Regional Center East Asia (RRC-EA), and sponsored by the Ministry of Environment, Republic of Korea and hosted by the Ministry of Forestry, Indonesia.

The workshop was to build capacity of effective site management and bird monitoring and to raise awareness of the value of waterbirds and their habitats. Around 60 site managers from 14 countries were invited to share their knowledge and experience in providing good habitats for waterbirds and dealing with challenges they had faced. Some have been site manager for a long time, while others only for a few years. Making the most of every opportunity, there were more Indonesian site managers for intensive discussion in this workshop.

As East Asian-Australasian Flyway has 15 different languages besides English, some participants found it difficult to participate in interactive discussions in English. This is a challenge we have been struggling with and it needs to be better dealt with. However, most site managers found this workshop quite useful and productive, and all promised that they will organise a national site manager workshop to share the lessons they learnt and identify what other challenges are out there.

We were able to identify important sites that qualify for inclusion in the Flyway Site Network through this workshop. These sites will be highly recommended to EAAFP Government Partners for FSN nomination.

To see relevant photos on YouTube, please click here.