Welcome

Featured

Linking Communities, Wetlands and Migratory Birds “links” people along a migratory bird pathway that extends from the Chaplin and Quill Lakes of Canada, through the Great Salt Lake of the United States, to the Marismas Nacionales of Mexico.

Vision Statement:
In 2015, Linking Communities will be strengthened through institutionalized initiatives that provide for sustainable conservation in each of the three priority areas and at all seasons. An integration of range-wide monitoring, research and habitat conservation with quorums of cooperative institutions, biologists, educators and community leaders will be actively engaged. Communities will recognize the value of sustainable natural resources as a measure of social, economic, educational and cultural health. Success will occur when we each, in our own place and time; see a migratory bird and know our responsibility for its well being and for those friends from which it has departed and to whom it will return.

Mission Statement:
The Utah Linking Initiative participates in connecting people along a migratory bird pathway that extends from the Chaplin and Quill Lakes of Canada, through the Great Salt Lake of the United States, to the Marismas Nacionales of Mexico and beyond. Linking promotes range-wide conservation of migratory birds that each community shares and the endemic birds that frequent these environments. As Linking partners we work within our communities and cooperate internationally to preserve these critical areas for their ecological values, and the economic, educational, social and cultural wellbeing of the people who live near them. Efforts are focused in three areas: environmental education, ecotourism, and conservation.

Education Update from Mexico

Hello my friends: I want to share with you the presentation from the meeting on September 8th, and also the agreements that we took. In the presentation you can see some of the pictures of the birds that we are going to observe and the activities that we are going to develop this month.

About the meeting that we had wth Dr. Carlos Villar at CHICS, I want to tell you that we obtained important support for our work. Just by coincidence he is working with Snowy Plovers, and he has located many of them. He offered us to go on a field trip to the Marismas region and observe at least 4 of the 6 species that we have writen down as highly important. The tentative date is to go down on Saturday 22 of September, with the possibility to go with one or two students. Please if anyone is interested, let us know so we can organize the trip with the least expenses possible.

Warm wishes, if you need any more information contact the Miguel Hidalgo school or talk to Lupita.

Sincerely,
Abel Castillo

Best wishes for our friends in the US and Canada

Linking Communities Gets a Big Boost from Rio Tinto and BirdLife International

By Don Paul
Utah Linking Coordinator
 
The Linking project has received a $70,000 grant from the Rio Tinto – BirdLife International Partnership Action Fund to support its tri-national efforts.
 
The funding is part of a larger program that Rio Tinto-BirdLife is starting to advance range-wide bird conservation in the Western Hemisphere through local community action associated with sites of significant importance to migratory and resident birds.
 
The Utah-based Rio Tinto business, Kennecott Utah Copper is a major partner in this effort. They are committed to assist with habitat protection in the Great Salt Lake — a key migratory bird habitat in the Americas.
 
Jonathan Stacey, BirdLife Director for the Western Hemisphere Flyways Program, said the project will commit a total of $130,000 in 2009. Part of that money will go toward support for the Linking program, and part will be spent on extending a program modeled on Linking into several South American countries.
 
“We feel able to proceed with what we believe to be a groundbreaking initiative that has, at its foundation, long established experience of linked community-based migratory bird conservation and education,” said Stacey. “The Linking Communities program will play a major part in extending this initiative throughout the Americas.”

Linking Wins Award

By Jim Woolf

“Linking Communities, Wetlands and Migratory Birds” received a prestigious award on March 19 for its bird conservation efforts. The Linking group was given a “2009 North American Bird Conservation Award” for its “unparalleled accomplishments in bird conservation at the local and international scale.”

The award, given by members of the North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI), was announced during the 74th North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference in Arlington, VA. “This is a great honor for our Linking partners that have worked so hard to make rangewide bird conservation a part of their community conservation actions,” said Don Paul, coordinator of the Utah Linking group.

A ceremony to formally receive the award is tentatively scheduled for May 16 during the Great Salt Lake Bird Festival.