From November 14-17, 2024, the twond Asian Ornithological Convention in Beijing, most likely the most important bird-related convention in Asia till now, came about on the Chinese language Nationwide Conference Heart with lots of of ornithologists from Asia and all around the world attending. The convention was organized by the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese language Academy of Sciences along side plenty of ornithological societies and principally Chinese language universities, together with Beijing Forestry College, which is a companion of East Asian Australasian Flyway Partnership (EAAFP) and hosts the EAAFP science unit. Established scientists, activists and younger aspiring students got here collectively to debate advances of ornithological science, but in addition methods to raised defend birds. In plenary periods and dozens of concurrent smaller workshops all features of science and nature safety associated to birds have been mentioned, with poster periods and an exhibition with many various exhibitors, amongst them these providing binoculars and scopes, but in addition hen tags and know-how to document hen track including to the curiosity of holiday makers.
There have been plenty of Korean scientists becoming a member of, amongst others from Seoul Nationwide College and Kyung Hee College. Prof. Lee Sang-Im of the Gyeongbuk Institute of Expertise was one of many keynote audio system of the convention with a paper on the breeding efficiency of Oriental Magpie in city areas. A session on Asian hen flyways, which embrace the East Asian Australasian and the Central Asian flyway was convened by Vivian Fu from WWF Hong Kong and Ding Li Yong of Birdlife Asia. It showcased the advances of cooperation on flyway points in East Asia, but in addition confirmed that the Central Asian Flyway is comparatively understudied and underrepresented. Many different periods lacked Korean illustration, for instance the workshop on the ecology and safety of Oriental White Stork.
Being not an ornithologist myself, I can solely marvel on the advances in science – genetics particularly – and in addition know-how: methods to document sounds, ultra-light-weight tags making extremely detailed research of migration routes attainable and so forth. On the identical time, the main target of educational analysis appears to generally fall wanting the chances, these thrilling new science and know-how traits supply, however perhaps my impression is improper. Plainly in nations with much less advances in sciences rather more of larger relevance particularly for conservation could be researched. Nonetheless, for Korea and Korean researchers it was a fantastic alternative to combine with Asian and worldwide ornithologists. The one unhappy factor is that North Korea once more – like within the EAAFP Science Unit Convention final month in Beijing – was absent, although Beijing is the best international place for North Koreans to go. Hopefully, this can change once more by subsequent yr.
