Shorebird Festivals and more, how Ecuadorian communities celebrate migration.

In Ecuador, Shorebird Festivals are becoming a local traditional fest whereas communities, civil society, and government combine their efforts to promote the value of shorebirds and their critical sites. Ana will describe how their efforts to celebrate shorebirds are providing positive impacts on their communities and ecosystems, and the benefits of partnerships between festivals.

Ana Agreda is an Ecuadorian wildlife biologist whose work has focused on shorebirds since 2007. She wrote the Shorebird Conservation Plan for Ecuador and runs a shorebird and aquatic bird fauna conservation project in three priority sites along the Ecuadorian coast. Education and connection with local people are an important component of all her projects, and for that reason Shorebird Festivals have been in the center of her work. She has coordinated three Shorebird Festivals in Ecuador, each one at the three key sites for shorebird conservation. Prior to her work with shorebirds, she spent significant time on the Galapagos, studying Swallow Tailed Gulls and Nazca Boobies for David Anderson of Wake Forest University. Since returning from the Galapagos, she continued studying birds on the continent and has devoted 25 years of her life to research and conservation of birds in Ecuador. Ana has published six books and 20 scientific articles, has organized explorations to the Amazonian sandstone Condor Cordillera and the Pastaza River Valley, and has also participated in the discovery of several new species for Ecuador. She has dreamt of coming to Cordova, Alaska to learn more about Erin Cooper’s work with the Forest Service and to participate in “one of the most important Shorebird Festivals in America”.