Gatsibo members of the Coeur Joyeur nature club joined the world in celebrating the World Migratory Bird day, yesterday, by taking part in a bird watching excursion at the man-made lake in Nyarutarama.

According to the Executive Director of the Association for the Conservation of Nature in Rwanda (ACNR), Serge Nsengimana, they aimed at sensitising and educating people on different barriers of bird migration in order to promote conservation.

"We have up to 142 migratory birds in Rwanda. Hence the need to sensitize people on migration patterns and obstacles to these birds’ migration,” Nsengimana said.

During migration, birds face many growing man-made barriers such as; wind turbines, power lines, TV and cell phone transmission masts, windows and tall buildings among many other structures.

"In collaboration with ACNR, we want to celebrate this day. We want to showcase and advocate conservation of migratory birds. We want people to conserve the habitat so as to protect birds that come here yearly,” said Peter Katanisa who represented the Rwanda Development Board (RDB)

In a related press statement the Executive Secretary of African-Eurasian Migratory Water Bird Agreement (AEWA), Bert Lenten, said that some of these man-made barriers can be easily avoided.

"Although man-made barriers represent an increasing problem for migratory birds world over, little attention has been given to possible solutions. My strong hope is that World Migratory Bird Day will help raise awareness of these barriers and that action will be taken to reduce the impact,” he said.

World Migratory Birds Day (WMBD) is a global initiative devoted to celebrating migratory birds and for promoting conservation worldwide. This year WMBD theme is "barriers to migration.”

ACNR will be using this weekend to conduct several events devoted to celebrating migratory birds and for promoting their conservation.

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