Mainstreaming Conservation of Migratory Soaring Birds (MSB)

The MSB regional project aims to ensure the preservation of globally threatened bird species into key productive sectors along the Rift Valley/ Red Sea Flyway. The project spanned over a period of 5 years from June 01, 2008 until December 31, 2014. The overall project goal is to ensure that globally threatened and significant populations of soaring birds that migrate along the Rift Valley/Red Sea flyway are effectively maintained. The project is working in 11 countries within the Rift Valley/Red Sea Flyway: Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
MSB Lebanon (2010-2015) is executed by the MoE, funded by the GEF and implemented by UNDP and technically supported by BirdLife’s partner in Lebanon, the Society for Protection of Nature in Lebanon (SPNL). MSB Lebanon has produced some publications that support MoE in the management of the hunting sector. For that purpose, the project has developed the hunter manual guide as well as the guide for the hunting permit exam and have conducted in 2011, 2012, and 2013 several training workshops across the country to build the capacity of the hunting law enforcers (ISF, forests guards and nature reserves guards) on the enforcement of the hunting law and on birds identification and to the hunting clubs on the approach that should be adopted to run the hunting permit exams (since they are the responsible entities to run these exams).The project has also set-up a specific software and acomputerized system so that the hunting exams are performed on computers at the certified hunting clubs and results go automatically to the MoE. A webpage (http://hunting.moe.gov.lb/) has also been developed to inform hunters about the hunting exam procedures, allow them to register for an exam, and keep them up-to-date with any new publications.
Furthermore, the project has produced the following publication on conservation of birds: the Birds Atlas, Birds Identification Manual, the State of Lebanon Birds and IBAs and the Field Guide to the Soaring Birds in Lebanon and hunting clubs on bird identification and on the new hunting law.
MSB Lebanon is also targeting the energy sector in its future activities through the updating of the National Physical Land Use Plan in cooperation with the Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR) through the integration of IBAs and bottlenecks areas into the NPMPLT and putting specific conditions for infrastructure in these areas in order to minimize the threats on the soaring birds during their migration over Lebanon.