Kudos!

Chilean National Petroleum Company (ENAP) receives international conservation award. This September in London, U.K., the national petroleum company of Chile (Empresa Nacional del Petróleo [ENAP]) was awarded 1st Place in the category “Best Corporate Social Responsibility Campaign” at the annual meeting and awards ceremony of the prestigious, international magazine Petroleum Economist. ENAP received this award for its “Program for the Promotion of the Rational Use of Wetlands,” which encourages a joint approach to management and conservation of natural resources by ENAP and local communities. In addition to positive actions taken at several sites, ENAP was selected in particular for carrying out immediate operational measures to avoid environmental impacts at Bahía Lomas, the 69-kilometer wetland ecosystem at the mouth of the Straits of Magellan, Tierra del Fuego. ENAP and other partners are currently in the process of nominating Bahía Lomas, one of the hemisphere’s most essential wintering areas for migratory shorebirds, as a WHSRN Site — the first in Chile.

WHSRN partners Aves Argentinas and Guyra Paraguay receive Partnership Awards from Birdlife International. At its World Conference and Global Partnership Meeting held this September in Buenos Aires, Argentina, BirdLife International recognized several individuals and organizations that have significantly advanced its conservation objectives worldwide since the last World Conference four years ago. Our sincere congratulations go to Aves Argentinas and Guyra Paraguay, each of whom received one of Birdlife International’s prestigious Partnership Awards! We are grateful to both organizations for all they have done to bring partners together for the conservation of important shorebird habitats and areas in their country—and for bringing those areas into WHSRN. For more information visit http://www.birdlife.org/news/news/2008/09/birdlife_awards.html

“Migration Mystery and Science” distance-learning program receives two national awards in the United States. Congratulations to our partners for their 2007 “Migration Science and Mystery – a Distance Learning Adventure” project, which received top honors this summer from two prestigious U.S. professional associations – the Annual Communicator Awards and the Videographer Awards. This innovative education program was developed in partnership by the U.S. Forest Service and the Prince William Network, an educational institution in northern Virginia. They used Web and satellite-broadcast technology to bring the science and mystery of shorebird migration to elementary school students throughout the Western Hemisphere – more than 500,000 in total throughout the 2006-2007 school year! Students learned about shorebirds and their wetland habitats, chatted with biologists and researchers, and participated virtually in various live field trips from Panama to Alaska. For more information, and all the archived online field trips, visit http://migration.pwnet.org