Waterbird and site monitoring along the Atlantic coast of Africa

Wadden Sea Flyway Initiative

The wetlands of the Atlantic coast of Western Africa are of utmost importance for waterbird populations, other biodiversity and people alike. For proper policy and management of these resources monitoring is an important tool. It helps in providing an early warning of negative developments and provides evaluation of taken measurements. Countries in the region require monitoring data as the basis of site management decisions, national conservation strategies and international obligations.

This document provides both a strategy on the collection of monitoring data, concentrating on numbers of waterbirds and the environmental conditions of their sites, and provides a practical manual showing how to carry out this monitoring, both for coordinators and fieldworkers.