Asian Waterbird Census (AWC) India coordinators convened a virtual meeting on June 20th, 2020 for assessing the status of AWC implementation in India. A total of 14 coordinators representing 10 states/ Union Territories of Andaman & Nicobar Islands; Andhra Pradesh, Telangana; Delhi-NCR; Goa; Jammu, Kashmir; Odisha; Punjab; Tamil Nadu and West Bengal participated in the meeting, which also had representations from Bombay Natural History Society, Wetlands International South Asia & global offices.
The meeting saw discussions on progress in analysis of Asian Waterbird Census data for 2016-2020; facilitating outreach and communication through newsletters & reports and progress made on decisions taken during AWC State Coordinators meeting held at Lonavala in 2019. As priority actions, the participants agreed to rectify the AWC site database through harmonization of AWC sites and eBird locations, upgrade the AWC priority sites, and produce bi-annual newsletters & annual AWC report for outreach purposes. It was also decided that priority actions will be incorporated within annual activity calendar to track progress. The participants were also encouraged to hold thematic online meetings for facilitating the process of implementation of AWC in India.
Asian Waterbird Census (AWC) India is a citizen science initiative for monitoring of Waterbird counts and wetlands condition. It is jointly coordinated by Wetlands International South Asia and Bombay Natural History Society at national level and implemented each January by AWC India state coordinators and volunteers in different states and UTs of India.