"Cool Tools" for Waterbird and Wetland Conservation

The WOW project is funded by the GEF (Global Environment Facility), The German Government and several other donors, and it is implemented by UNEP as a joint effort by leading global conservation organisations and partners such as Wetlands International, BirdLife International, the AEWA, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, and UNEP-WCMC (World Conservation Monitoring Centre) and UNOPS.

The CSN Tool will be instrumental to improve our understanding of waterbirds migration, and it will promote their conservation through better management and more informed decision making at the flyways scale. This will also help combat the adverse effects of climate change by protecting the critical wetlands habitats used by water birds. These habitats are also important for the livelihoods of millions of people in rural communities living around those wetlands.

Selected as one of the best web-based conservation mapping tools, from over 100 entries, the CSN Tool is being increasingly featured in birding and conservation magazines and winning global awards since its launch in 2010. This online conservation tool features 294 species of water birds and covers all the known important sites upon which they depend (n.b. access is free, on the WOW website).

The supporting WOW "Flyaway Training Kit", also launched in 2010, is a 560-pages training package developed to build professional capacity to plan, implement, monitor and engage in effective flyway-scale conservation of migratory water birds and wetland habitats in the entire AEWA region. It is the result of collaborative efforts of the WOW partners and over 40 training institutes across the AEWA region. Three modules are included in the FTK, focusing on understanding, applying and communicating the flyway conservation concept. The FTK covers the topic of flyway conservation with example-rich text, case studies, ready-to-use PowerPoint presentations, practical exercises and workshop programmes. This is all available for free download online in the WOW website, and is available in English, French, Arabic and Russian languages.