8th Meeting of Saving Asia’s Vulture from Extinction
"SAVE" has begun in Nepal from 29 November to 30th November 2018 at
Hotel View Bhrikuti, Godawari.
At the opening ceremony of the 8th Annual SAVE meeting in
Kathmandu, SAVE Chairman Professor David Houston today formally welcomed
Nepal’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation as the
nineteenth Member of SAVE. Man Bahadur Khadka
accepted a bouquet and expressed that the was pleased DNPWC is to become
a full Partner, recognition of the close relationship and mutual support this
represents. David Houston went on to emphasise how the vulture conservation
work in Nepal has led the way not only with respect to developing the Vulture
Safe Zone concept, but in achieving the first large scale reductions in diclofenac
use which have directly led to vulture populations starting to recover. He went
on to say how the releases close to Chitwan National Park are a great flagship
and so far are going extremely well. Two of the fonder members of SAVE, Bird
Conservation Nepal (BCN) and the National Trust for Nature Conservation have
been working hand in hand with DNPWC, and BCN are the hosts of this year’s
meeting.
Forty delegates
representing six range countries and other international experts have converged
on Kathmandu to review progress and evaluate changes to the regional Blueprint
Recovery Plan. This plan also represents the main Asian component of the CMS
multi-species Action Plan for vultures.