World Migratory Bird Day 2015 – “Energy – make it bird-friendly!”

Each year on the second weekend in May, dedicated organizations, governments and people around the world plan events to mark World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD) celebrating migratory birds and raising awareness about the need for their conservation. Since World Migratory Bird Day began in 2006, events have been held in 130 countries and this year we hope to reach even more people and organizations to connect and work together towards conserving migratory birds and their habitats worldwide.

The 2015 Theme: Energy – make it bird-friendly!

In times of ever-increasing global demand for energy, developing new and expanding existing renewable energy technologies are key when striving towards a low carbon future. Yet energy cannot be truly sustainable and nature-friendly unless it fully takes biodiversity and, more specifically, migratory birds into consideration. With the theme “Energy – make it bird-friendly!”, WMBD 2015 aims to highlight the importance of deploying energy technologies in a way that prevents, minimizes and mitigates impacts on migratory birds and their habitats.

Every year, millions of migratory birds struggle with the massive expansion of various means of generating and distributing energy: collisions and electrocution due to power lines as well as barrier effects from energy infrastructure are causing mortality and displacement. In addition, the birds suffer effects from habitat loss and degradation and other disturbances from the deployment of hydropower, bio-energy, ocean, solar, wind and geothermal energy technologies. Sustainable renewable energy production is expected to have positive effects on migratory birds by mitigating climate change and its impacts. However, if certain energy technologies are deployed without proper planning, design and risk assessment, it can pose a grave threat to migratory bird species.

Register Your Event to Support Migratory Birds

Join the celebration of a great natural wonder on World Migratory Bird Day! Take action and celebrate, conserve and raise awareness of migratory birds on 9-10 May 2015 by organizing educational programmes, lectures, bird-watching tours, visits to bird-friendly energy infrastructure, competitions, art exhibitions and other public events. However you decide to participate, every activity counts and your contribution will help make a real difference! [Be Inspired and Learn More about How Others Celebrate WMBD]

Please register your event on the dedicated World Migratory Bird Day website so we can add it to the global Event Map: www.worldmigratorybirdday.org/register-your-event

Order Posters, Postcards and Stickers

We are pleased to offer this year’s World Migratory Bird Day poster in English, French, Spanish and German. Poster packages can be ordered by organizers to help promote their events as long as our supplies and limited budget for shipments will allow. The poster and other materials are also available in electronic format on the World Migratory Bird Day website. You can download the materials in different formats (including the original design files) and use them to print and customize the materials for your local context and use. [Download Electronic Versions of the 2015 Poster]

Be creative and design and translate your own World Migratory Bird Day posters into your local languages to support your event. If you translate or make your own World Migratory Bird Day poster, please send a copy at contact@worldmigratorybirdday.org so we can share it further with the growing World Migratory Bird Day community across the globe to inspire, encourage and help others living in your region or speaking the same language as you.

Social Media Hashtag: #WorldMigratoryBirdDay

The World Migratory Bird Day Social Media Hashtag is #WorldMigratoryBirdDay. Please add it to your Facebook and Twitter posts to connect with the WMBD Social Media community. You can also search for it to see what others all over the globe are doing for World Migratory Bird Day!

Background Information

World Migratory Bird Day was initiated in 2006 and is an annual awareness-raising campaign highlighting the need for the conservation of migratory birds and their habitats. It is jointly organized by the Secretariats of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) and the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) – two international wildlife treaties administered by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) – and a growing number of partners.

This year’s campaign is financially supported by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB), which we acknowledge with great gratitude.

Contact:

Contact us at: contact@worldmigratorybirdday.org

Tel: +49 (0)228 815 2471
Fax: +49 (0)228 815 2450
www.worldmigratorybirdday.org