Site Assessment Tool Workshop Held at Brazil’s Lagoa do Peixe WHSRN Site 
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More than a dozen national experts and researchers gathered in Mostradas, Río Grande do Sul, Brazil, in October to participate in the workshop entitled, “Applying the WHSRN Site Assessment Tool in the Lagoa do Peixe National Park.” The workshop was facilitated by Dr. Juliana Bosi de Almeida of Brazil on behalf of the WHSRN Executive Office and by Diego Luna Quevedo, Southern Cone Program Coordinator for Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences’ Shorebird Recovery Project. Together, they and participants used WHSRN’s Site Assessment Tool to carry out a consensus-based, complete evaluation of the state of the park, and the type and extent of threats that shorebirds and their habitats face there.
The tool contains four comprehensive, thematic worksheets: management effectiveness, state, threats, and actions. As a result of completing these, participants established priorities and could better visualize the responses and actions needed to address the variety of threats and pressures identified in and around the park. The goal of such actions is to ensure the effective conservation of the park’s key shorebird habitats. María Tereza Querioz Melo, Director of Lagoa do Peixe National Park, commented that, “Applying this valuable WHSRN Site Assessment Tool allows us to have an updated baseline for the park, to plan our work better, and to improve the effectiveness of our actions for the long term. Based on this exercise, we’re very interested to advance towards the design of a Shorebird Conservation Program for the park.”
The Lagoa do Peixe National Park was created in 1986 to protect one of the most important sites in South America for migratory birds. It has an extensive coastal plain of more than 34,000 hectares comprising a diversity of habitats including shrub vegetation, marshes, flooded fields, beaches, and the Lake Peixe—the park’s main body of water and namesake. These habitats provide a rich biomass for feeding migratory shorebirds. The park was designated a WHSRN Site of International Importance in 1990. It is known globally for supporting large concentrations of shorebird species that are in serious population decline, such as Red Knot (Calidris canutus) and Buff-breasted Sandpiper (Tryngites subruficollis).
For more information, contact Diego Luna Quevedo (diego.luna@manomet.org) or Meredith Gutowski (mgutowski@manomet.org).
