The Boards
Scientific Board
The Scientific Board includes the members of the Executive Board and representatives of EURING, EBCC, and Global Flyway Ecology.
EBCC – The European Bird Census Council is an association of expert ornithologists cooperating in a range of ways to improve bird monitoring and atlas work and thereby inform and improve the management and conservation of bird populations in Europe. The main goals of EBCC, of direct interest to the HABITRACK project, are to bring together ornithologists who are interested in the study of distribution, numbers, and demography of European birds; encourage monitoring of bird distribution, numbers, and demography aimed at improving their conservation and management; promote rigorously planned monitoring with clear objectives; detect and if possible, understand changes, and provide relevant agencies with sound information to base conservation and management actions; promote the development of indicators of the changing capacity of European landscapes to support wildlife; work closely with international ornithological and conservation organisations, and encourage links between ornithologists, land managers, and policymakers.
EURING is the coordinating organisation for European bird ringing schemes. This organisation enables cooperation in all scientific aspects of bird ringing within Europe. It promotes international collaboration on all aspects of scientific bird ringing, particularly in Europe and along the Eurasian African flyway. Its work includes collaborative research, data sharing and scientific meetings. EURING holds the European ring recovery database, which documents bird movements and migration across the continent (see the recently launched online Eurasian-African Bird Migration Atlas). With EURING into the scientific board of the project, HABITRACK benefits from the experience and networks of all European ringing schemes, sharing knowledge on the best methods and practices to capture and track birds.
Global Flyway Ecology – Prof. Theunis Piersma is a senior research scientist at NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research and at the Faculty of Science and Engineering of the University of Groningen. He leads the Piersma Group – Global Flyway Ecology. His team was the first to establish the great importance of intra-individual phenotypic flexibility in ecology and evolution. The team has shown the importance of not only food quantity but also quality to molluscivore shorebirds and established a unique integrative picture of the inter-relationships between food, bodies, behaviour and survival. The work on the demography of various shorebirds, both in marine (red knots, bar-tailed godwits) and terrestrial contexts (black-tailed godwits, ruffs), also yields phenomenal insights into the drivers of their distribution and abundance. Again, though motivated by science, these insights have a major societal bearing. T. Piersma developed several studies on habitat selection on breeding sites and carry-over effects using telemetry tools on some of the species listed in the HABITRACK program.
The Steering Board
The Steering Board includes the members of the Scientific Board and representatives of AEWA, BirdLife Europe & Central Asia, FACE and JRC.
AEWA – The Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) is an intergovernmental treaty dedicated to the conservation of migratory waterbirds and their habitats across Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, Greenland and the Canadian Archipelago. Developed under the framework of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) and administered by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), AEWA brings together countries and the wider international conservation community to establish coordinated conservation and management of migratory waterbirds throughout their entire migratory range. All AEWA species cross international boundaries during their migrations and require good quality habitat for breeding and a network of suitable sites to support their annual journeys. International cooperation across their entire migratory range, as provided by AEWA, is therefore essential for the conservation and management of migratory waterbird populations and the habitats on which they depend. International Single Species Action Plans (ISSAPs) are the key instrument developed under AEWA to implement coordinated measures to restore migratory waterbird species to a favourable conservation status. International cooperation among the species’ range states is essential for implementing these action plans. In the Steering Board, the AEWA is directly interested in enhancing HABITRACK recommendations, for example, to feed current and future ISSAPs. Eighty-two countries and the European Union (EU) have become Contracting Parties to AEWA, so having AEWA in the steering committee can allow impact beyond Europe at the scale of species flyways or distribution ranges.
BirdLife Europe & Central Asia – BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organisations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International’s priorities include preventing the extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding important sites for birds, maintaining and restoring key bird habitats, and empowering conservationists worldwide. BirdLife Europe & Central Asia works to conserve birds and biodiversity by focusing on species, sites and habitats, ecological sustainability, and people’s engagement. Based in Brussels, they are supported by 44 Partners from 43 countries, including all EU Member states.
FACE – FACE is the European Federation for Hunting and Conservation. Established in 1977, FACE represents the interests of Europe’s 7 million hunters as an international non-profit-making non-governmental organisation (INGO). This makes FACE the largest democratically representative body for hunters in the world and probably one of the largest European civil society organisations. FACE is made up of its members, including national hunters’ associations from 37 European countries, including the EU-27. FACE also has 7 Associate Members and has its Secretariat in Brussels. FACE upholds the principle of sustainable use and has been a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) since 1987. FACE works with its partners on a range of hunting-related matters, from international conservation agreements to local implementation issues, with the aim of sustaining hunting across Europe. FACE is then a key member of the Steering Board to endorse and disseminate recommendations for habitat management and restoration to restore a favourable conservation status for currently non-secure huntable bird species.
JRC – The Joint Research Centre in Ispra is the third biggest European Commission site after Brussels and Luxembourg. Established in 1960 as a nuclear research site, today, it is considered as one of Europe’s leading research campuses with many laboratories and unique research infrastructures. The staff of the Ispra site work on sustainable resources, including agriculture and environment policies. The responsibilities of the JRCs are to create, manage and make sense of knowledge to support European policies; to develop innovative tools and make them available to policymakers; to anticipate emerging issues that need to be addressed at the EU level and understand policy environments; to share know-how with EU countries, the scientific community and international partners; to contribute to the overall objective of Horizon 2020. JRC could then play a major role in the Steering Board to maximise the impacts of HABITRACK’s outputs.
Weltlands International Europe. Wetlands International is a global not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the conservation and restoration of wetlands. Wetlands International’s work ranges from research and community-based field projects to advocacy and engagement with governments, corporate and international policy fora and conventions. Wetlands International Europe is the regional division that focuses on the protection and sustainable management of European wetlands. It collaborates with a network of partners to influence policies, support conservation initiatives, and enhance the ecological integrity of wetlands across Europe.
