Welcome to the Birds Festival Event - 2019 International Site Manager Seminar and Seocheon Bird Fair

From 22^ndNovember to 23^rdNovember 2019, International Site Manager Seminar was held at Birds Ecology Exhibition Hall in Seocheon County, Ro Korea. This event was organized by Seocheon County and Korean Eco-Tourism Society with an aim to encourage effective site management and ecotourism through sharing birdwatching eco-tour information from overseas and local cases. Approximately 25 participants, including experts from domestic and overseas, and site managers, attended and the seminar. Together with the 2019 Seocheon Bird Fair held at the Seocheon Wetland Center, the seminar was part of the BirdLife International’s Welcome to the Birds festival events.

On November 23rd, all the participants attended the seminar to be enhanced their capacity on bird watching. A keynote presentation was made by Daehwan Kim, the President of the Society of Wild Birds. During his presentation, he introduced to bird watching development in the USA, UK, and other places and explored the possibility of promoting bird watching events in Ro Korea.

After Mr. Kim’s presentation, Miss Vivian Fu, Communication Officer of EAAFP Secretariat, gave a presentation with the name of ‘The management in internationally important sites and international cooperation’. Vivian also introduced CEPA work of EAAFP as a way to make people more engaged in conservation actions, she also shared how education and ecotourism could help conservation, with Black-Faced Spoonbill as a case study.

The last presentation was made by Mr. Terry Townshend from Birding Beijing. He shared three successful cases of ecotourism on Snow Leopard in China, Mountain Gorillas in Uganda and Whale Shark watching in Australia.

There was a panel discussion after the presentations, the participant was involved in the discussion session and shared opinions about the development and potential for Seocheon County’s bird watching ecotourism.

Outside the Seocheon Wetland Centre, the Seocheon Bird Fair took place at the same time. More than 20 game and exhibition booths related to bird watching were opened to general public who are interested in enjoying bird watching.