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January 2005
En Español
Scholarship opportunity for Mexican biologist to attend wetlands workshop
The SJV will provide one scholarship for a Mexican biologist to attend the upcoming wetlands workshop in Morelia . This is the seventh year of this award winning workshop. The person selected must be able to attend for the entire two week period, starting 30 January, and be able to pay for his or her own travel to and from Morelia . Hotel, food, and workshop registration will be paid by the SJV sponsorship. The focus of the workshop will be riparian and western Mexico coastal environments. Please submit a one-page letter of application to Carol Beardmore via email by 10 January 2005 . Please include a justification about why you should participate in this training and how you will use the information from the course in your conservation work. The scholarship recipient will be notified as soon as possible after 10 January.
Important message for all SJV Awards Program recipients: reporting requirements reminder
Have you turned in your interim and/or final reports for your past SJV Awards projects? If not, you may not be eligible to receive funding in the 2005-06 funding cycle. Only organizations and individuals that have fulfilled past commitments to the SJV will be eligible to receive Awards in the upcoming Awards cycle. If you have not submitted interim and/or final reports and have not made other arrangements with the SJV, you will not be eligible to receive funds. If you are uncertain of the status of your past Award, please contact Carol Beardmore.
SJV partner recommended for three NAWCA grants
Pronatura Noroeste, A.C., one of the Sonoran Joint Venture's main partners in Mexico, was recently recommended to receive three grants from the North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) for projects in three Mexican states (Sonora , Sinaloa, and Baja California). A final decision on the recommendations is expected in March 2005. If funded, Pronatura Sonora will use support to purchase water rights in the Colorado River delta, Sinaloa will implement conservation projects in Bahía Santa Maria, and Baja biologists will use the grant for wetlands conservation projects in northern Baja.
SJV, others, facilitate Seri bird monitoring workshop
From 15-18 December 2004, the Sonoran Joint Venture, in collaboration with the Northern Arizona University Center for Sustainable Studies (CSS), Proyecto Corredor Colibrí, PRBO Conservation Science, and others, sponsored and facilitated a bird monitoring workshop in Desemboque, Sonora, for the Seri (Comcáac) Indians. CSS received an SJV Award to help develop a bird monitoring program for Estero Sargento, the northernmost mangrove habitat complex in western Mexico . This project, which emerged from the Desemboque community after five years of a "para-ecologist" capacity-building effort, seeks to develop community leadership and monitoring skills to better manage the coastal habitats of migratory birds.
During the course of the workshop, ten Seris, including five young women, were trained in bird identification, field methods, and data collection techniques. Seri elders also participated in the workshop, sharing traditional knowledge and songs about the birds and habitats discussed during the workshop.
Special thanks to Eduardo Gómez, Juan Caicedo, Steve Latta, and Andy Miller for their help in facilitating the workshop. To learn more about the project, please visit http://sonoranjv.org/NAU_Seri_2004.htm. 
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"Cross-Border Collaborators In Environmental Education" meeting held in Tucson
Educators and other representatives from seventeen different organizations, including the Sonoran Joint Venture, met on 10 December 2004 to discuss cross-border collaboration in education efforts in the Arizona-Sonora border region. The workshop, hosted by the Environmental Education Exchange (EEE) and funded by the EPA's Border 2012 Program, was part of a series, aimed to help provide the most useful communications forum for agencies and organizations with Mexico outreach programs. The EEE will guide the cross-border collaborators (CBC) and hopes to work under the collective advisement of the groups involved to best meet their needs and interests.
If you would like to be involved in this group, please contact Pepe Marcos , Mexico Programs Coordinator, EEE.
Arizona IBA Program 2004 Catalog of Important Bird Areas published
Tucson Audubon Society recently completed the Arizona IBA Program 2004 Catalog of Important Bird Areas, a project funded in part by the Sonoran Joint Venture. This report presents a catalog of identified and potential Important Bird Areas in Arizona as of 2004. The Arizona IBA Program works with Audubon chapters, agency biologists, university scientists, regional non-profits, and citizens to provide a state-wide inventory of sites critical to birds of conservation concern, sites where birds congregate in large numbers, or sites with an exceptional habitat type, supporting species restricted to that habitat.
To learn more about the Arizona IBA Program or this new report, contact Scott Wilbor, Arizona IBA Program Coordinator.
World Wetlands Day
Each year around the world, 2 February is World Wetlands Day. It marks the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on 2 February 1971 , in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea . Each year since 1997, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and groups of citizens at all levels of the community have taken advantage of the opportunity to undertake actions aimed at raising public awareness of wetland values and benefits in general and the Ramsar Convention in particular. From 1997 to 2004, the Convention's Web site has posted reports from more than 80 countries of WWD activities of all sizes and shapes, from lectures and seminars, nature walks, children's art contests, sampan races, and community clean-up days, to radio and television interviews and letters to newspapers, to the launch of new wetland policies, new Ramsar Sites, and new programs at the national level.
To learn more about World Wetlands Day 2005, including how you can order materials for your own community, visit http://www.ramsar.org/wwd2005_index.htm. Upcoming grant deadlines
- North Star Science and Technology Transmitter Grant Program: This program will award eight Argos Platform Transmitter Terminals to one or two recipients. Please see www.northstarst.com for more information and proposal guidelines. Deadline for proposals is 2 February 2005. Contact George Wallace with any further questions about the program
- Five-Star Restoration Matching Grants: This program provides modest financial assistance on a competitive basis to support community-based wetland, riparian, and coastal habitat restoration projects that build diverse partnerships and foster local natural resource stewardship through education, outreach and training activities. Applications must be postmarked by March 1, 2005. Projects will be evaluated to the extent by which the guidelines are met. Applicants will be notified of their awards in mid-June. For more details, visit http://nfwf.org/programs/5star-rfp.htm.
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