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Global Conservation

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Mass Audubon's Global Conservation Efforts

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1950s     Mass Audubon's Hatheway School of Science and Education hosts ornithologists from the United Kingdom, Holland, and Germany to do behavioral studies and lecture on bird ecology at Drumlin Farm.
1969     Mass Audubon's International Natural History Travel Program is founded, which contributes to global research and conservation efforts.
1980     Coastal Waterbird Program (CWP) staff tries to discover the unknown wintering range of the roseate tern believed to be in Guyana and Brazil. (the staff returns in 1992).
1981     British Honduras becomes an independent country and changes its name to Belize. With the country's new status, several national parks are created.
1982     Christopher Leahy, who currently holds the Gerard A. Bertrand Chair of Natural History and Field Ornithology at Mass Audubon, first visits Mongolia (then known officially as the Mongolian People's Republic and to much of the western world as Outer Mongolia) and is astonished by its spectacular natural wonders.
1983     Mass Audubon sponsors its first tour to Mongolia (including Siberia). It was a great adventure, but the Soviet travel system was too restrictive to return.
1984     Mass Audubon is asked to provide financial aid to the struggling and all-volunteer Belize Audubon Society, which was charged with managing the country's park system. In November, Mass Audubon made the first of many donations.
1988     Mass Audubon forms a nonprofit Belizean organization, Programme for Belize (PfB), with the goal of permanently protecting more than 150,000 acres of tropical forest in northwestern Belize. PfB now protects 260,000 acres.
1989     First of 3 exchanges takes place with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) in the United Kingdom to compare best practices. Founded around the same time as Mass Audubon, the RSPB is one of the largest conservation organizations in the world.
1990     Domination of Mongolia by the USSR ends and the country begins a rapid transition to a democratic form of government and a market economy.
1992     CWP staff discovers the wintering ground of roseate terns in Suriname, South America.
1990s     Mass Audubon supports land protection, carbon sequestration, and sea turtle tagging programs on Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica.
1993     Chris Leahy returns to Mongolia to help scout potential for ecotourism. The 3-week adventure explores remote forests, steppes, lakes, and deserts that few Western eyes had seen. As a result of this scouting expedition, Mass Audubon and the fledgling company Nomadic Expeditions offers the first broad-based natural history tours to sample the major ecosystems of Mongolia.
1999     Mass Audubon works with the World Land Trust to preserve 17,000 acres of the Patagonian steppe habitat, including coastline, in Argentina.
2004     Joppa Flats begins the International Intern Program, in which interns from Latin America and elsewhere come to Newburyport, Massachusetts to learn about North American birds, participate in best-practice models of bird conservation and education, master conversational English, and strengthen Joppa Flats' relationship with international conservation organizations.
2007     Joppa Flats launches Certificate Program in Bird Ecology in Belize to educate naturalist guides and teachers about the fundamentals of ornithology, leadership skills (especially for leading birders from North America), and bird conservation.
2009     Mass Audubon launches a Mongolian conservation partnership with Nomadic Expeditions, Mongolia's premier tour operator and expedition outfitter. The program focuses on ecotourism, environmental education, interpretive publications, green building design, and earth-friendly operations.
2009     Mass Audubon creates the Belize Conservation Fund to support the conservation work in Belize, including the Programme for Belize (PfB) and the Toledo Institute for Development and Environment (TIDE).
2010     CWP partners with the Canadian Wildlife Service at Sable Island, Nova Scotia, to study post-breeding roseate terns.


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