By Jorge Andrade and Antonieta Valenzuela
As an initiative of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), site representatives from the Pacific Flyway were chosen to attend a shorebird festival in Cordova, Alaska: the Copper River Delta Shorebird Festival.
Terra Peninsular has conservation projects together with the CEC, including the nomination project to designate Ensenada Bay as part of the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN).
The importance of Ensenada lies in the fact that is located along the Pacific Flyway, a migratory route used by birds, and also, the bay is a stopover site for thousands of shorebirds that feed and rest there during migration.
As the only representatives from Mexico, two staff members of Terra Peninsular were invited to participate in the festival in Alaska. The objectives were to meet representatives from other communities link to shorebirds sites, discuss about cooperation and conservation actions, as well as participating in the activities and get ideas to replicate in other sites in the American continent, including Ensenada and San QuintÃn.
Near Cordova is the Copper River, a place designated in 1990 as a WHSRN site due to its importance to more than a million migratory shorebirds. This designation was an important event for the festival, and since then it has international prestige. Since 27 years ago, the event gathers birdwatchers, biologists, locals and people from Alaska, the United States and other countries.
The festival lasted 4 days and a variety of activities where offered, such as airboat and birdwatching tours, a fundraising dinner, a series of presentations on birds, keynote speakers, as well as handicraft workshops and bird banding, among others.
