Thursday, November 4, 2010

MNS Firefly Survey and Monitoring Workshop


CFZ Firefly Survey team after having concluded a survey of Sg Nyalau, Kpg Kuala Nyalau last October. Photo by Sara Wong.

The MNS Miri Branch together with MNS Conservation Division, would like to invite participants to the MNS Miri Firefly Survey and Monitoring Workshop to be held in Miri, Sarawak from 11-12th December 2010.

Venue : Kelab Shell Petroleum, Lutong
Date : 11 and 12th December 2010

Our main resource for the course will be Sonny Wong, Senior Conservation Officer, MNS Conservation Division and Dr Mahadimenakbar Mohamed Dawood, Institute of Tropical Biodiversity and Conservation, University Malaysia Sabah. Musa Musbah, Project Executor for CFZ Survey Northern Sarawak will also share his experiences to date with Sarawak fireflies.

Participants are expected to cover their own travel and accommodation expenses for the duration of the course, they will be provided materials and relevant group meals. Transport to and from fieldsites will be provided by the organisers.

MNS Miri Branch under the funding of the Congregating Firefly Zone Survey Northern Sarawak 2010 by MNS Merdeka Fund, is currently compiling a baseline data on congregating firefly zones (CFZ) of the mangrove lined rivers in Northern Sarawak.

The project started in August 2010 at the branch level and will continue until April 2010. The project aims to create a CFZ directory for Northern Sarawak which hopefully will eventually culminate in a number of candidate locations suitable as targets for conservation or rural eco-tourism development.

MNS Miri Branch welcomes contribution from other Branch members in East Malaysia, UNIMAS, UMS, government agencies as well as members of the public to help in the compilation of the CFZ in Northern Sarawak. It is also hoped that this work will be replicated to other regions in Sarawak as well as in Sabah. The directory will be made available to the respective State Governments for conservation of the firefly and the mangroves habitat or potential eco-tourism activities.

This particular workshop organised in Miri hopes to share the experiences and enthusiasm to date on the firefly survey and monitoring work in a two day classroom sessions and one evening fieldwork session.

We hope at the conclusion of the course participants will have had good exposure about firefly conservation in Malaysia and several concrete ideas and steps to further improve the collective work in CFZ in Malaysia in general.

It is also our fervent hope that the sharing of experiences on methodology and practical learnings during the course will spur further activities in firefly survey and monitoring in Sabah and Sarawak.

Please contact the organiser for further information:

Nazeri Abghani, MNS Miri Branch
nabghani@yahoo.com or please call 085-453185/016-8542212

(Program details are available upon request).


No comments:

Post a Comment