The Wings Over Wetlands (WOW) Project is the largest international wetland and waterbird conservation initiative ever to take place in the African-Eurasian region.
The WOW is a partnership among international conservation organizations and national governments, which aims to improve and conserve healthy and viable populations of African-Eurasian migratory waterbirds. This will be achieved by assisting a wide range of partners to conserve the key critical wetland areas that these birds require to complete their annual migrations across Africa and Eurasia, by improving international cooperation and by building local professional capacity.
The area covered by this initiative includes all 119 range states of the UNEP administered African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement (AEWA), covering all of Africa, all of Europe, south-west Asia (including the Middle East and Central Asian States), Greenland and the Canadian Archipelago.
Wings Over Wetlands is a joint effort between Wetlands International (hosting the project's coordination unit in Wagenigen, NL) and BirdLife International, supported by the UNEP-GEF (The Global Environment Facility), The Government of Germany and a wide range of other donors and partners. The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) is engaged to support project implementation, and the WOW team operates in close coordination with the UNEP/AEWA Secretariat, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, UNEP-WCMC and with many local partners along the African-Eurasian flyways.
A new web portal is being developed by the WOW technical team and will provide unprecedented access to information on over 300 migratory waterbird species, their migration routes and the key wetland sites these birds use in the African-Eurasian region. Once developed, the Critical Sites Network (CSN) Tool will unify the conservation efforts of countries along the entire Flyway by providing decision-makers and conservation organizations with the improved data access needed for timely and focused wetland and waterbird conservation.
The project supports field projects in eleven important wetland areas in 12 countries. These projects are focusing on a number of wetland-related conservation issues including community mobilization, management planning, ecotourism, field research, wetland restoration, control of invasive species, trans-boundary management, education and alternative livelihoods. WOW Demonstration Projects are active in: Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal / The Gambia, South Africa,Tanzania, Turkey and Yemen.
A training and capacity development framework is being developed in consultation with a wide range of partners across the region. This will focus on enhancing the professional capacity and understanding of flyway-scale conservation concepts among conservation professionals and decision makers at various levels across the AEWA region.
The WOW Project in brief (overview of basic facts)