The Rufford Small Grants Foundation project "Important Birds Area conservation: Monitoring carried out by specially trained students in Uzbekistan"

2008 - 2009

The Rufford Small Grants Foundation (RSG) is a charity established specifically for supporting small scale nature conservation projects or pilot projects. In 2007 Bird watching clubs at four universities (National University of Uzbekistan, Samarkand State University, Nukus State University and Bukhara State University) throughout Uzbekistan were established. Students in these clubs are working actively, watching and counting birds, caring for our great nature. In 2008 and 2009 this new generation of young nature conservationists was trained and supported through RSG project "Important Bird Area conservation: Monitoring carried out by specially trained biology students in Uzbekistan" co-financed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

The purpose of the project was "the introduction to monitoring of Important Bird Areas, implemented through specially trained local biology students. Thereby capacity for further biodiversity conservation in Uzbekistan is increased". The project took place at nearby Important Bird Areas of the four participating universities and consists of various components, which were: basic field research and various nature conservation activities and a training and capacity building component. This project complemented BirdLife's Important Bird Areas Programme while training and educating a new generation of researchers and scientists working for the conservation and monitoring of IBAs.

From April, 2008 to October, 2009 students of Bird watching Clubs carried out monitoring on IBAs close to their universities. As a result 11 IBAs have been monitored, this relates to 23% of all IBAs in Uzbekistan. For 5 IBAs at least 1 criterion has been added. All monitoring data has been passed onto Uzbekistan IBA program and included into AviCA database (www.avica.uz). At the conference, which was organized one year after project start, 36 students, professors and UzSPB staff participated in. Talks were given in 4 sessions: reports on IBA monitoring through Rufford funding; talks on individual scientific work; talks of UzSPB and Bird watching Club advisors.

Three most important outcomes of your project:

I. The Training "Introduction to survey & census methods for IBA monitoring" and Conference "Monitoring of IBA through student Clubs" were excellent ways to build capacity of students and Bird watching Club advisors (lecturers of universities).

Through the interactive training students and advisors received up-to-date knowledge in modern survey techniques. For the first time all Clubs were brought together and thus gave them a feeling of the network they belong to.

The participation in the conference, giving a scientific talk gave students more self-confidence, showed their commitment to the project and how well the Club network develops. Clubs had the opportunity to exchange experiences, which gave important stimulation and raised new ideas.

II. The participation of students in all practical project activities (monitoring and awareness raising) was an excellent opportunity for students to apply their skills in the field.

As universities in Uzbekistan are mainly theory-based, excursions or practical lessons in the field are very rare because of lack of money. This project greatly contributed to the practical training of 50+ students. Six students, which have been in their last BSc year, started to continue with MSc studies.

III. The project helped to spread information on student Clubs and the IBA program in general on many levels.

Through active promotion in local and national press and at universities the idea of the student club network got widely spread out. This helped to raise the image of Clubs as groups of young and committed scientists. As a result of the project, a new student Club in Kokand Pedagogical Institute has been organized, initiative for which came from students of this educational institution.