Women in bird conservation
Conservation just like any other science in Uganda is dominated by men leaving out women. For us to achieve a wholistic conservation, we need all people involved in the drives despite their gender or age. There are a number of drives that have been done towards bridging this gap an example is the Uganda Women Birders Club, an initiative to increase the number of women in bird watching. Shoebill-Watch Uganda comes in to supplement these efforts by creating awareness on conservation of birds as well as providing opportunities for volunteering and internships.
Community sensitization
Local communities are the stewards of natural resources. Involving local communities in conservation projects creates awareness, culminates a sense of belonging and resources’ ownership for the community and eventually these protect the Shoebill, other birds and their habitats as well as the environment at large. There are a number of activities here, an example is the community drives to clean up bird habitats, designing of awareness materials like articles, newsletters, posters, presentations. Shoebill-Watch Uganda trains local people in identification of birds, monitoring their populations and habitats.
Habitat restoration
Globally, man is the biggest cause of habitat loss through activities like; deforestation, wetland reclamation, bush burning, introduction of invasive alien species, over exploitation of resources etc. These and many others can affect birdlife directly and indirectly through increased species’ mortality, loss of habitat and reduced reproductive rates. Shoebill-Watch Uganda aims at restoring some of the habitats of birds through programmes like afforestation and re-afforestation, wetland restoration, creating awareness and many others
Take a kid birding/ Young Stewardship Program
Children are the future conservation leaders and therefore need to be aware about their surroundings at an early age. This program gives children, mothers and care takers a chance to learn about the importance of birds, habitats, threats and witness actions to protect them. Mothers and caretakers spend a lot of time with children and therefore are well positioned to instil morals and conservation actions into children.
Urban Bird Conservation
The increasing human population has led to an increase in urban areas as people encroach on bird habitats and establish settlements. This has therefore left a number of birds homeless as they hang around cities for example the globally threatened Grey Crowned Crane. Owing to the human uncontrolled waste disposal, there is an increase in other bird species in urban areas such as the Hooded Vultures i.e Nature’s clean-up clue, Pied Crows, Marabou Storks. This presents a need to sensitize the urban dwellers on the roles played by these birds.
Rare Bird species
Shoebill-Watch Uganda keeps an online database of the sightings of the Shoebill, other rare bird species and closely follows their distribution. This information is readily available on our website.