SOME RECENT BIRDLIFE SOUTH AFRICA SUCCESSES

Some recent BirdLife South Africa successes/achievements (2009/2010)

I believe that BirdLife South Africa is currently going from strength to strength, and this is largely due to the hard work and dedication of its staff, its volunteers and its members.

BirdLife South Africa’s focus has changed and our main goal is now bird conservation, especially through the conservation of threatened species and the protection of Important Bird Areas.

A lot has been achieved during recent months, but there’s a lot to do.

Despite the difficulties BirdLife South Africa and other NGOs have recently been experiencing (and primarily the difficulty in finding funds for our work), our organization has made great strides in the past 18 months and there’s a lot to be positive about. This includes:

We are now better at communicating with our members and the public:

·         We have an upgraded website (www.birdlife.org.za), which is updated almost daily.

·         Our new e-newsletter, which is produced monthly and e-mailed to c. 6000 people, is attractive and filled with interesting information.

·         Regular talks are presented to BirdLife South Africa’s bird clubs.

·         Regular media releases are sent to c. 100 journalists (in the recently developed standard format) and we’ve been receiving extensive coverage in the country’s newspapers.

·         Weekly radio interviews are done on Classic FM, 702 Talk Radio, Cape Talk Radio, and Radio Pretoria.

·           A one-page document about BirdLife South Africa was developed and is e-mailed to many interested people.

·         Our pages in Africa Birds & Birding are getting better (more informative, with lots of interesting and relevant information), they are well received and we have a wonderful relationship with Africa Geographic Publishers.

·         We now have vastly improved communication with our partners and collaborators (especially other environmental NGOs and scientific institutions).

·         We went to the UK to tell Prince Charles about our work on reducing the mortalities of albatrosses and petrels during long-line fishing operations.

We’re winning on the membership front:

·         We have a new membership system which, barring the club reports (which are almost in a format which is acceptable to the clubs), is up and running (and significantly better than the previous system).

·         A Membership Committee was established and it meets monthly.

·         Individual and Corporate Membership brochures were developed and printed, and the Individual Membership brochure has just been improved and reprinted.

·         We held a successful membership recruitment campaigns in 2009, and we have another campaign this year.

·         Our membership is growing, and we’re probably the only environmental NGO in South Africa which has a growing membership.

·         We have recruited new Conservation League Members and we have a growing number of Corporate Members.

We’re doing very well in terms of governance, especially with respect to our financial management:

·         We have an Executive Committee, which meets monthly, and which guides the operation side of BirdLife South Africa. The members have business, financial and legal skills.

·         The Audit Committee meets quarterly, and reports to Council and the Executive Committee.

·         Our auditors, KPMG, once again commended BirdLife South Africa on its sound financial management.

·         Our Treasurer kindly dedicates much time to assist us with our financial management, and he’s a much valued member of the BirdLife South Africa team.

·         The Schedule of Competencies provides clear guidelines on internal compliance governance.

We have distinguished people as our Patrons:

·         BirdLife South Africa is honoured to have Gaynor Rupert and Precious Moloi-Motsepe, two distinguished business ladies, as its Patrons.

·         Phil Liggett is the Patron of BirdLife South Africa’s Fast & Featherless Cycling Team.

We serve on many national and international committees, for example:

·             Mark Anderson is Vice-President of the Hawk Conservancy Trust, a Director of the Raptor Research Foundation, Vice-Chairman of BirdLife’s Council for Africa Partnership, and a member of several steering committees and advisory boards.

·             Dr Ross Wanless is a member of the Tristan Biodiversity Advisory Group, the Global Seabird Programme Steering Committee and convenor of the Atlas of Seabirds at Sea committee.

·             Mark Anderson, Hanneline Smit and Ernst Retief serve on the SABAP2 Steering Committee.

·             Mark Anderson is the Editor of Vulture News and an Associate Editor of Ostrich.

BirdLife South Africa continues to promote bird-watching in South Africa:

·         We have changed the focus of the Avitourism Division, with the emphasis now on the provision of information on our Birding Routes website (www.birdingroutes.co.za).

·         The division aims to complete a network of birding routes throughout the country by the end of 2010.

·         In 2010, we brought on board the Free State and North West Birding Routes.

·         Work has been completed on the Kruger to Canyons Birding Route

·         We are consolidating the successes of the Bird Guide Programme. Our focus in the future will be on the mentoring of the guides who were previously trained (accreditation, additional training, mentorship, etc.) and incorporating them into our different projects, such as the IBA Programme and SABAP2. We raised almost R500K for the Bird Guide Programme in 2010.

·         Work has been completed on the Kruger to Canyons Birding Route

·         We have received funding for write-ups on Free State birding sites, routes, etc., for www.birdingroutes.co.za

·         With the assistance of SSACI, we have assisted two communities in Venda with the construction and operation of two campsites.

·         BirdLife South Africa’s first Carbon Footprint Offset project is about to be launched. The Avitourism Division has set up a community-owned nursery in the Limpopo Province as well as an offset scheme for tour operators and tourists.

·         We produced (with funding from Zeiss) the first official “Checklist of the Birds of South Africa”.

·         We provided extensive inputs into the Department of Trade and Industry commissioned study which showed that bird-watching in South Africa (local and international bird-watchers) is worth an estimated R700 million to R1.8 billion rand per annum.

·         Our Birder Friendly Establishment Programme is going from strength to strength: we have a growing number of BFEs, information is regularly added to the www.birdingroutes.co.za website and an informative and attractive monthly newsletter sent to all BFEs.

·         The Seabird Division runs the only birding tours to Robben Island during their annual Save Our Seabirds Festival, as well as putting on occasional pelagic birding trips and a tour of the Cape Peninsula during the FIFA 2010 World Cup.

People are becoming more aware of the environment:

·         We’re using our Learning for Sustainable Living programme to teach learners in rural areas about birds and the environment, and the programme is focused in and around Important Bird Areas.

·         During 2009 and 2010 our Bird of the Year was the Cape Robin-chat and the Lesser Flamingo respectively, and attractive and informative posters were produced and informative lesson plans were developed.

·         Youth fora have been established in Gauteng, Wakkerstroom and Phalaborwa. These fora, consisting of 16-20 young people, are becoming involved in a variety of environmental activities, including bird surveys.

·         Unsolicited donations and offers of in-kind support are made to us every month because, increasingly, people know that we are actively conserving our birds.

BirdLife South Africa is on a better financial footing:

·         BirdLife South Africa turned around its significant losses during 2007 and 2008, and had only a relatively small loss during 2009.

·         We secured funding for five years for the Conservation Division Manager position (Oppenheimer Fellow of Conservation).

·         We have a growing number of Golden Bird Patrons (people and companies who give us R50K or R100K per annum towards our administrative costs).

·         A Legacy Programme was initiated, including formation of a committee, development and printing of a brochure, publication of articles in the e-newsletter and in Africa Birds & Birding, and monthly talks are presented to groups in Johannesburg to encourage people to include BirdLife South Africa in their wills.

·         We have a growing network of support from influential/successful businesspeople, including David Chamberlain, Alan Knott-Craig, Nicky and Strilli Oppenheimer, Barry Sayer, Stuart Loxton, Mike Brown and others.

·         We have raised significant funding for our work, including funding for community-based conservation work in the Eastern Cape, for guide-development, for policy and advocacy, for a marine IBA programme, and for education.

·         More and more people are registering BirdLife South Africa as a beneficiary on their My School My Village My Planet cards, and we’re receiving regular income from this initiative.

·         We have an MoU with Diemersfontein Wine Estate and 5000 cases of wine with the label “For our birds” will soon be bottled (and the proceeds will go to our seabird conservation work).

We’re now getting to do our most important work, namely bird conservation:

·         We have appointed a well-qualified Conservation Division Manager.

·         A BirdLife South Africa Bustard Working Group was formed, a workshop was held, a document which defines the priorities for bustard research and conservation was produced, and Bustard Beat (the Bustard Working Group’s e-newsletter) was produced and distributed.

·         We obtained funds for African Penguin advocacy, research and conservation (R1.5 million over three years from the Charl vd Merwe Trust).

·         The BirdLife South Africa Conservation Advisory Committee was formed and it meets bi-annually, and recently reviewed BirdLife South Africa’s seabird conservation work.

·         We’re through the first round for a large funding application to revise The Eskom Red Data Book of Birds of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland.

·         We have initiated work on wind farms, including the development of a sensitivity map for South Africa and signing a MoU with the Wildlife Energy Interaction Group (EWT).

·         We are one of eight partners of the Climate Action Partnership, which aims to reduce the impacts of climate change and the resilience of South Africa’s biodiversity and communities to the predicted changes.

·         We participated at the climate change meeting in Copenhagen (UNFCCC COP 15), as well as a host of other national and international climate change meetings.

·         We were successful in preventing coal mining from taking place in the Wakkerstroom grasslands.

·         We are part of an NGO coalition which is opposing mining at Mapungubwe.

·         With funding from the Jensen Foundation, we’re assisting provincial and national government (through workshops) with information on the implementation on the Ramsar Convention.

·         We’re revising the BirdLife South Africa “Priorities for bird conservation” document.

·         We’re represented on the National Scientific Advisory Committee for the Convention of Migratory Species (CMS) in South Africa and the African Eurasian Waterbird Agreement Technical Committee.

Although we’re not a research institution, we’re partnering with other institutions:

·         We collaborate closely with UCT’s Animal Demography Unit on a range of projects, including SABAP2, CWAC and CAR.

·         BirdLife South Africa actively promotes SABAP2 using a variety of media, and we have funded a series of SABAP2 workshops.

·         We have a very good relationship with the Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, UCT, and sit on the Advisory Committee; Dr Wanless is an Honorary Research Associate at the Institute and co-supervises postdoctoral and doctoral research there.

·         We fund two full-time postdoctoral fellows undertaking seabird conservation research at the Percy FitzPatrick Institute, and two part-funded postdoctoral fellows involved in African Penguin work at the Animal Demography Unit.

·         We do research on mitigation measures to reduce long-line impacts on seabirds, and these have been presented at local and international conferences and published in the scientific literature.

·         We’re initiating projects on White-bellied Korhaans with Dr Craig Symes (Wits) and Yellow-throated Sandgrouse with Prof. Gerard Malan (Tswane University).

·         We have an MoU with Clemson University (South Carolina, USA) and we’re collaborating on projects on White-backed Vultures, African Fish-Eagles and Lesser Flamingos.

·         We conduct research in the grasslands, on the most suitable management methods for the grasslands and on Southern Bald Ibises. A number of scientific publications are in preparation.

·         BirdLife South Africa, SANBI and the Animal Demography Unit has developed and launched an Atlas at Sea Project (AS@S).

·         We support ornithological research projects through the BirdLife South Africa Trust.

We’re now doing excellent work on our Important Bird Areas Programme:

·         We re-launched the IBA Programme, undertook a study to prioritize our IBAs, are busy with the re-assessment of our IBAs, and we have interactive IBA information on our website.

·         We have secured funding from the Plastics Federation of South Africa for our marine IBA Programme.

·         We have submitted several very large funding applications for our IBA Programme.

Wakkerstroom is now a dynamic hive of activity:

·         The Centre has undergone a major revamp, and is used by a growing number of groups.

·         Importantly, ownership of the property will soon be transferred to BirdLife South Africa.

On the HR front, there’s also good news:

·         David Maphisa has registered to do a PhD at UCT, and Kate Henderson should follow suit soon.

·         We now have a detailed and comprehensive HR and financial procedures and policies manual.

·         We have a proposed new staff structure which enables BirdLife South Africa to effectively work towards its important goals of conserving birds and their habitats.

·         The BirdLife South Africa staff members are very positive, hard-working and passionate about the organization and its goals and objectives.

·         We have a growing number of people who offer up time (and finances) to assist BirdLife South Africa with its work.

Our working environment is also getting a face lift:

·         We have a new board room, with furniture kindly donated by De Beers.

·         We’re making our offices more attractive: bird paintings on walls, indigenous garden, new signboards with our new logo and catchphrase, and our head office will soon get a fresh coat of paint.

We’re becoming very well known:

·         We have a new logo, and a catchy strapline, “Giving Conservation Wings”.

·         We have billboards in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town.

·         We’ve held high profile events, including hosting the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats and a Princess Takamado gala dinner.

·         Much of our branding and marketing is driven by the dynamic team on our Marketing Committee which meets monthly.

We’ve held some very successful events:

·         Our Owl Awards now have a new format: 12 Owl awards and two Eagle-Owl Awards and new trophies. The evening is also loads of fun!

·         We held another successful “sasol birds & birding fair”.

·         We held a successful Cats musical evening and Princess Takamado dinner, and there is a Mrs UN SA fundraising dinner in August and a Phil Liggett fundraising dinner planned for November.

·         The Sappi BirdLife South Africa Birding Big Day has been revamped, including a new category on Garden Birding (with a website for the submission of entry form and records).

·         In October we held a very successful Save our Seabirds Festival.

·         The BirdLife South Africa AGM at Wakkerstroom in March 2010 was a roaring success.

·         During and after the World Cup we have run Seabird Ecotours in Cape Town (with funding from the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund).

All of the above would not be possible without the contributions of a large number of people (staff, ExCo, Council, regional fora, volunteers, branch/club committees, and of course BirdLife South Africa’s members) and the financial support from a growing number of donors, all of whom are helping us “give conservation wings”.

Mark D. Anderson

Executive Director

19 July 2010

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