The WWF is run at a local level by the following offices...
Wetland Management Training Programme
Nurturing talent on wetland conservation is key to maintaining the integrity of the East-Asian Australasian Flyway. Through working with our partners, WWF successfully offered training programmes to wetland management personnel in the region to enhance their knowledge and habitat management skills.
Since 1990, WWF has been collaborating with China’s State Forestry Administration, other Government Departments and NGOs. We offer training courses which take place in Mai Po Nature Reserve during which wetland conservation experts from mainland China share philosophies, principles, information about current technology, and the experience of wetland management and environmental education. The programme targets were mostly wetland management personnel from mainland China, as well as managers and staff from conservation organizations in Taiwan, Macau and south-east Asian countries.
As of 2016, WWF has organised more than 400 of these training courses at Mai Po involving a total of more than 4,500 participants. Generally, these courses involve an average of 180 participants annually, with the duration between one and eight days.
- Use Mai Po Nature Reserve and the Mai Po Inner Deep Bay Ramsar Site as as best practice examples which illustrate how to plan and implement wetland management and environmental education programmes;
- Deepen understanding about the value of wetland ecosystems to both human beings and wildlife;
- Improve techniques and skills regarding wetland protection, management and environmental education;
- Provide a platform for mutual communication which allows for the exchange of experience, wetland protection techniques and expertise, management and environmental education; and
- Provide the opportunity for trainers to travel to wetlands managed by their trainees, allowing them to make technical suggestions to improve management.
Every year, WWF conducts a post-training “application survey”. Conducted by questionnaire, these surveys help us understand the application and impacts of our training courses in mainland China. Over the years, the surveys have determined that the most applicable programmes are wetland management planning, environmental education, wetland restoration and ecotourism. The findings have shown time and again that these training programmes are highly applicable– they help wetland protection personnel as they work to conserve precious wetlands in the flyway.
Dongzhai Port National Nature Reserve
Hainan Province
This nature reserve was home to a large area of aquaculture ponds. Waste produced by aquaculture activities in these ponds resulting in environmental pollution and withering of some of the mangroves. The Haikou government then stopped the aquaculture and initiated wetland restoration. A forestry engineer, Huang Yu-chun, proposed retaining part of the mudflats to provide a feeding site for waterbirds and to maintain species diversity, similar to the open mudflats of Mai Po Inner Deep Bay.
Puzhehei Wetland Reserve – Yunnan Province
Li Gang is the assistant centre manager of the reserve. After participating in our wetland management training programme, he applied wetland restoration principles at his reserve by planting native aquatic plants and removing invasive alien plants to restore wetland areas which had been destroyed by human activities.