NATURE TANZANIA ‘PEOPLE AND CONSERVATION: PROMOTING AWARENESS RAISING AS A TOOL FOR BIRD CONSERVATION IN TANZANIA’ PROJECT FINAL TECHNICAL REPORT SUBMITTED TO THE AFRICAN BIRD CLUB JANUARY 2020 1. Acknowledgment Nature Tanzania acknowledges and thanks to the African Bird Club for their financial support on this project. Their commitment to helping Nature Tanzania, youths and students in Tanzania is highly acknowledged. Through this project, Nature Tanzania has been able to build capacity and raise awareness of more than 340 people in Arusha, 234 people in Dar es Salaam and 80 people in Amani Nature Reserve. The Government of Tanzania is highly acknowledged for allowing us to implement this project in Tanzania. We thank the technical support we have received from BirdLife International Tanzania office, the Malihai Clubs of Tanzania, the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU), The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), The Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA) and the Arusha International Conference Centre (AICC) for their technical and additional financial support into this project. BirdLife International Africa is also thanked for its commitment to seeing this project a success. Moreover, a 2019 annual waterbird count was organized and fully funded by the BirdLife’s project in Lake Natron Ramsar Site. The Attraction Birding Club (ABC) is acknowledged for being an active member of bird walks and talks. Students and school administration of FEA, Wisdom college are also thanked for their good participation and eagerness to learn birds. Mr. Emmanuel Richard has been very supportive in assisting the coordination of bird walks activities in Arusha. Dr. Jasson John and the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) are acknowledged and thanked for their commitment to organizing and conducting similar activities in Dar es Salaam. UDSM students are also acknowledged by this project. University of Dodoma (UDOM) is acknowledged for releasing a total of 10 students and 1 lecturer to participate in the 2019 annual waterbird count at Bahi wetlands. 2. List of Acronyms ABC - The African Bird Club AGM - Annual General Meeting AICC – Arusha International Conference Centre EECDI – Engaresero Eramatare Community Development Initiative FEA - Foundation for Empowerment and Advocacy UDOM – University of Dodoma UDSM – University of Dar es Salaam TANAPA – Tanzania National Parks TEMDO - Tanzania Manufacturing and Engineering Organisation WMBD - World Migratory Bird Day 3. Table of contents 4. Introduction Nature Tanzania received financial support from the African Bird Club (ABC) to implement the ‘People and conservation: Promoting awareness raising as a tool for bird conservation in Tanzania’ project in Tanzania. The 12 months project was implemented from January 2019 to December 2019. The project was implemented in Arusha, Dar es Salaam, and Tanga. Dr. Jasson John coordinated project activities in Dar es Salaam, while in Arusha and Tanga Nature Tanzania coordinated the activities. The project aimed at raising public awareness on bird conservation through nature-talks, bird walks, national print, and electronic media. The project was built on the fact that awareness and knowledge are important factors for behavior and perception change. It is therefore very important to raise public awareness, especially of Tanzanian youths on bird conservation by using public talks, monthly bird walks, national print media, electronic media, and website. Bird walks and talks were used to inform the participants of the values and benefits of birds in supporting life systems i.e. ecosystem services including supporting the agriculture industry through pollination, seed dispersal. The role of birds in balancing our ecosystem by controlling diseases i.e. scavenging vultures was highly emphasized during this project. The focus areas of this project were in the following areas; Lake Natron Ramsar Site, Arusha town and Lake Duluti in Arusha region; Dar e Dar es Salaam coast and Dar es Salaam University forests in Dar es Salaam region. However, because of the emerging need and requests from communities, the project was also able to support similar activities in Amani Nature Reserve, Tanga region. Moreover, due to financial limitations, the project was not able to design and print leaflets and brochures. This project has also supported Mr. Lawrence Manjira in the electronification of his multilingual Special Tanzania Guide Book for online access on the Amazon website. The book includes information for visitors and residents about Tanzania. This project was able to bring together youths, students, amateur birding and other interested parties in Dar es Salaam and Arusha for ensuring bird conservation and awareness of their value is well understood at all levels. The project was also able to engage government officials and community members in bird monitoring activities and also in nature talk. The project has also supported commemoration of the World Migratory bird day in the regions of Arusha and Dar es Salaam. In Arusha, bird walks and nature-talks were organized and conducted by Nature Tanzania in collaboration with tourism colleges located in the Arusha region. These include the Arusha Wisdom College of Tourism and FEA College. Other collaborating institutions in Arusha were the Malihai Clubs of Tanzania. In Dar es Salaam, the activities were organized and conducted by Dr. Jasson John of the University of Dar es Salaam. A detailed technical report for Dar es Salaam activities is attached as Annex 1 of this report. 1 In this report, we are also updating activities that were implemented in connection to this project but were funded by other financial sources within Nature Tanzania and our partner, Bird International. This includes the 2019 annual waterbird count at Bahi wetlands, 2019 annual waterbird count at Lake Natron Ramsar Site, the participation of project partners in the 2 nd Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Nature Tanzania. Several bird watching activities reported in this report were supported by other sources within Nature Tanzania. For sustainability, a special request is hereby lodged to the (ABC) by Nature Tanzania, youths, students and other participants for a project extension. 5. Methods: 5.1 Bird Walks In Dar es Salaam, bird walks were monthly organized and conducted by Dr. Jasson John of the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM). This is on the first Saturday of every month from 7 am to 10 am. The bird walks were open to members of the UDSM bird watching club, academic staff of UDSM, primary and secondary students from schools in Dar es Salaam and its outskirts. The sites which were monitored include the forests within the University of Dar es Salaam grounds. Costs of participation by students were covered by Dr. Jasson John from the support received from this project. This includes soft drinks and snacks for UDSM students and bus fares for students from secondary and primary students. This was mainly to support interested students who in most cases do not have the financial capacity. In Arusha, bird walks were organized and conducted by Nature Tanzania in collaboration with several of its academic institution partners. These are FEA training Institute, Sila College, Wisdom College and the Attraction Birding Club (ABC). Moreover, some members of the Malihai Clubs of Tanzania had participated. Bird walks at Lake Natron Ramsar Site were conducted in collaboration with the BirdLife International, Tanzania project office under their Lake Natron Eco-tourism project. Please see section 5.2 below for a detailed methodology on counting the lesser flamingo. The bird walking events in Arusha were conducted twice every month mostly on Fridays and Saturdays starting on average from 7 am to 12 pm and sometimes whole day birding were conducted especially at Oldonyo Sambu. The sites which were monitored include Nanja wetlands, Oldonyo Sambu, Njiro area, Lake Duluti Forest Reserve. In Arusha, participating which included transports on public means, soft drinks and snacks were covered by Nature Tanzania through this project. This was done mainly to motivate students and other interested people who don’t have the financial capacity to attend these organized events. In both sites, binoculars, telescope and bird field guide books were used during these events. Cameras were also used to take pictures that were then updated on our social media. Because of the nature of the participants, who were mostly students and early learning birder, scientific methods were less used to allow and encourage learning through questions and discussions. In this way, the project has been able to stir enthusiasm on knowing many species as possible as well as the learning behaviors of respective bird species. 5.2 Lesser flamingo count at Lake Natron Ramsar Site Lesser flamingos’ abundance at Lake Natron in February 2019 was determined using the ground survey method following Bibby et al. (2000). The count was conducted by the Lake Natron Ecotourism project team, community volunteers and local tour guides from Engaresero Eramatare Community Development Initiative (EECDI). The volunteers were trained on waterbird count and flamingo identification (the difference between lesser and greater). We also made sure each group had one local guide who is good at bird identification. Because of logistics and resources, the Lake was divided into 3 sectors i.e. Pinyinyi lagoon, Magadini lagoon and Engaresero mudflat were conducted. The volunteers distributed themselves in counting birds in the stations synchronous. For large groups of birds, birds were estimated in subgroups of 100 or 1,000 birds. The number of birds at each station were obtained as a mean of the value of each counter. The mean count from each team was recorded and the total number of a lesser flamingo for a particular lagoon was obtained by summing the total means value of all teams in each station. The fact that lesser and greater flamingo intermingles during feeding and that large group of birds will be counted in groups of 100 or 1,000 birds, chances of counting greater flamingo together with lesser flamingo might occur.