Newsletter / Blog
2012-07-15 Touching lives through conservation project - Burkino Faso, West Africa.
A team of BirdLife International and Fondation NATURAMA
(BirdLife Partner in Burkina Faso)
visited Oursi Lake
recently to assess the impact of small scale funding received from Ricoh to
support the rehabilitation of Oursi
Lake ecosystem and
improve livelihoods. Oursi is one of the most important wetland in Burkina Faso located about 450km from Ouagadougou. The lake is
a major refuge for biodiversity in this Sahel
zone and has bird assemblage of over 100 species including 27 Palearctic
migrants.
The impact of the Ricoh grant in Oursi is far reaching and
mind bugling. One of the two community boreholes was rehabilitated through the
grant to provide water for the nearby tree nursery. The borehole now serves the
nursery and provides portable water to the entire community of over 2,000
people saving lives and livelihoods from unforgiving water borne diseases.
Pupils from the primary school adjacent to the borehole
could not hide their joy when they noticed our presence. They stormed us to say
a big thank you in their own way for the “NATURAMA borehole” as it is popularly
known. What an amazement to see conservation project touch the lives of
thousands of people.
The Site Support Group (SSG) in Oursi is unique in more than
one way. The group comprise agile and bright minds with an exceptional
commitment to biodiversity conservation and local capacity development.
They are vast in bird ringing, biodiversity monitoring, and
use their entrepreneurial skills to optimise the little support they have
received thus far.
Plans are underway to complement Ricoh annual grant for 2012
with additional funding from Ann Scott, wife of late Bob Scott who was the
former Head of Reserves at RSPB and a keen ornithologist. Ann formed a small
group of volunteers to launch an ambitious appeal to raise funds for habitat
restoration work to conserve Trans–Saharan migrant birds. The aim is to turn
Bob’s early death into a conservation win for birds.
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