Thursday, 4 February 2016

Based on its decades of work in developing countries, WICE has come to the conclusion that visitation of protected areas is indispensable for their conservation. Areas with little or no visitation are under far greater pressure than those that enjoy significant visitation. Over the years it has sought for ways of promoting interest in protected areas in developing and transition countries. In 1997, I was attending a training course in software use and web site development, and one of my instructors showed a website that - at the time - had some of the heaviest traffic on the internet. So he thought, how I can I put that knowledge to use for promoting visitation to protected areas. So I though how I could get the attention of the most enthusiastic nature travelers, the birdwatchers, then he could help them find those areas and thus contribute to their conservation by having bird watchers visit protected areas in developing countries. Knowing that birders want the national checklist of the birds of the country they are going to visit, I figured that I could get your attention by providing the national bird list of every country of the world in one website. Once having your attention, the website could then show information on the protected areas of the country of your interest and eventually ways on how to visit them. That was the idea behing Birdlist and Nature Worldwide and the reason why I created the website.

Although, some countries are still missing, we can proudly say that we currently cover about 80% of the countries of the world and 90% of the world's land mass. We know that our lists are not yet complete and often based on potential distribution rather than confirmed observations, but we continuously get emails with corrections and official up-to-date bird lists. In fact those emails are very important in motivating us and that is why we continue providing more information about birds, national parks and nature in general.

Great-Knot

Great-Knot-Sanbanze

Why Birds Lists?

Nature organizations are the single most important force driving the conservation movement in North America and Europe, and increasingly in developing countries as well. Nature organizations may differ greatly in their objectives: Some organizations bring people together who love to study and enjoy nature, such as bird organizations, like the Royal Society for the protection of Birds in the UK, Vogelbescherming in the Netherlands, the Sociedad Española de Ornitología, the Naturschutz Bund Deutschland, different Ornithologische Vereinigungen in Deutschland, Audubon Society and the Sierra Club in the USA, lots of botanical societies all over the world, etc. Given the passion of their members, most of these organizations promote nature conservation in a variety of ways, like organizing field trips, promoting love and concern for nature through educational programmes and through political lobbying.

Other organizations promote concern for conservation of nature or of the environment in general. However, the European and North-American conservation experience has taught us, that the larger conservation organizations are those that promote active enjoyment of nature and that help nature friends to go into the field and build friendships among each other. Among the nature friends, we see that birdwatchers often are the most active and enthusiastic people to go out into nature. Birders keep their own lifetime lists of birds and jointly they maintain bird lists for regions and countries. That is why I started thinking about catering to the interest of birdwatchers when I wanted to design a conservation website in 1997.

Birdwatchers in the developed world are also some of the most active travelers to developing countries to expand their own bird list and to get to know completely different avifaunas of countries far away from their homes. When traveling to another country to go birding, these birdwatchers love to have access to the birds list of the country of their visit. In many cases, it also is very difficult for them to find the national parks and nature reserves where they can go on a birding. Travel to developing countries requires proper preparation and it is difficult to find the really good places, like birding hotspots, great areas for trekking, backpacking, rafting, canoeing, biking and other forms of ecotourism.

In developing countries, we see a dramatic problem that there are many national parks and nature reserves that are under appreciated. Many of them hardly ever are visited, because there is little information about them, even less information on how to get to them and where to stay once you know that they exist. This leads to the situation that local populations see little benefit in the conservation coming from those protected areas. In Africa, the protected areas are the few places left with abundant wildlife and poachers like to go in and hunt the protected animals. In many countries, landless farmers settle in protected areas and cut themselves a little farm field from the forest. Worldwide, we have seen that visitation of protected areas - ecotourism - is one of the most effective ways to promote acceptance of and respect for protected areas among local inhabitants, as ecotourism creates employment.

Birdwatching Japan

Japan Nature Guide's Recommended Short Birding Tours

At JNG we can help you plan and arrange birding tours throughout the country. Whether you wish to enjoy birding during a few spare days after a conference, or wish to set off in search of some of the country's renowned endemics, we can tailor tours to meet your dates and your needs.

We have a range of recommended itineraries:

1, 2, and 3 day tours based in Tokyo. Birds to look for depend on the season of your visit.

3-day tour of the Izu Islands for seabirds and endemic land birds: albatrosses, Streaked Shearwater, Tristram's Petrel, Black Woodpigeon, Izu Thrush, Pleske's Warbler, Ijima's Warbler depending on the season.

4-5 day winter tour (December to March) to southern Kyushu for a wide range of species including wintering cranes: White-naped Crane, Hooded Crane, Sandhill Crane, Common Crane.

4-5 day waterfowl special (October only) visiting north and east Hokkaido for: Taiga Bean Goose,Tundra Bean Goose, Greater White-fronted Goose, Lesser White-fronted Goose, Snow Goose,Brent Goose, Whooper Swan and Bewick's (Tundra) Swan.

5-6 day winter tour of east Hokkaido.

5-6 day summer tour of east Hokkaido.

6-day tour of the Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa and Amami Oshima) for the central and northern endemics: Okinawa Rail, Pryer's Woodpecker, Amami Woodcock, Ryukyu Robin.

7-day tour of the Nansei Shoto (Yaeyama, Okinawa and Amami Oshima) for the southern, central and northern endemics: Ryukyu Serpent Eagle, Malayan Night Heron, Okinawa Rail, Pryer's Woodpecker, Amami Woodcock, Ryukyu Robin.

Greater Scaup

Greater-Scaup-Sanbanze

Q:I Question: Intend to bring my pet bird with me to Japan from a foreign country. Are there any procedures that are required for this?
Answer :Although an entry quarantine inspection will be not required when you bring your pet bird to Japan, there is other restrictions by other ministries.