43rd Board meeting of EBCC in Sempach (Switzerland), 15 - 16 March 2012
Present: Ruud Foppen (RF, Chairman), David Noble (DN, Vice Chairman/Treasurer), Hans-Günther
Bauer (GB, Secretary), Anny Anselin (AA, BCN Editor), Henning Heldbjerg (HH, Development Officer),
Mikhail Kalyakin (MK), Åke Lindström (ÅL, Delegate Officer), Oskars Keišs (OK, Development Officer),
Verena Keller (VK, Conference Officer). Observers: Mark Eaton (ME, RSPB, Development Officer),
Szabolcs Nagy (SN, Wetlands Int.), Francesc Sardà-Palomera (FS, SCALES), Petr Voříšek (PV,
PECBMS). Apologies: Lluis Brotons (LB, SMOG/ SCALES), Ian Burfield (IB, BirdLife Int.), Jana
Škorpilovà (JŠ, PECBMS), Zoltán Szabó (ZS, Cluj conference organiser).
TOP 1:
Chairman’s welcome to the Engure meeting, Chairman’s report
Chairman RF welcomes all Board members and observers to the 43rd Board meeting at the Vogelwarte
in Sempach and thanks Verena Keller very much for organising and hosting the meeting.
Chairman’s report postponed to the AGM meeting (see Minutes of AGM).
TOP 2:
Adoption of agenda, identifying AOB
The agenda is accepted as sent out. As PV has to leave early, the order of the TOPs is changed slightly.
TOP 3:
Minutes of 42nd Board meeting, checking back on Action Points
Most Action Points have been dealt with and will be treated under the respective subjects on the agenda.
The Minutes of the 42nd Board Meeting are agreed upon unanimously.
TOP 4:
Preparation of next EBCC Conference, Cluj 2013
VK disseminates a paper she had worked out on the Cluj conference. No time table has yet been prepared. She discussed a range of items with ZS and in preparing the agenda item for the Board meeting asked for his input on various issues. ZS did get back to VK recently answering her questions. VK reports
that considerable progress has been made with respect to the organisation and preparation of the Cluj
conference.
Venue, structure, and main topics have already been discussed during the previous Board meeting.
Main aspect still open is the list of Plenary speakers; first suggestions are discussed. Shall consider gender representation and regional representation in the final choice. The Scientific Programme Committee
shall select the final list and get into contact with the potential speakers.
Necessary now to set up a time frame; first announcement sometime this spring (May?), then pre-registration and invitation for talks in October. Contribution of Board members via e-mail welcomed.
TOP 5:
Bird Census News
AA produced two issues of Volume 24 (2011) in short succession, the second just having been sent out
(currently 300 copies are produced and posted).
The 25th volume for 2012 is “in the making”; time for changes? A questionnaire was sent out by AA on
readers’ opinions over potential changes, with 41 responses from 31 countries received. Most questions
got clear preferences; especially that BCN should be issued in a digital version, and in colour. This would
also be easier for AA and cheaper to produce and disseminate (mailing costs are quite high). The digital
version could also have a larger format than the present version. Board decides that BCN shall go digital, and that there does not have to be a printed version any more. Send mail around to recipients that
new issue has appeared together with link to BCN webpage. If libraries would like to receive a print version, a monetary contribution would be necessary, which many libraries would not accept. For the readers
in libraries it could work out if a printed version from the digital one were supplied for the reading room.
AA to finally decide on the new format until May and to start working on the next issue, which should be
brimming with good articles. There should be an article on “10 years of PECBMS”. A section of BCN
could be on national atlases to report on the advances in individual countries (“new developments in
national atlas work”  agenda for next ASC meeting).
The frequency of appearance should remain at two issues per year (unless during the atlas period more
are required; but this could also be achieved by increasing page numbers). Contents of BCN should not
be changed. The layout should be adapted for the digital format, but AA would need assistance in the
development of a new look. Anybody willing and able to produce a new design should contact AA and
make suggestions as soon as possible.
TOP 6:
Delegates list, improved Delegate involvement
ÅL sent out a new status report. In the meantime, there were two countries where Delegates stepped
down, Latvia and Germany, and in both countries the old Delegates immediately suggested who they
could be replaced with. Decisions on these will be made at the AGM. We have still no 100% coverage of
Europe with respect to Delegates.
Board has to make a decision on the inclusion of a separate Kosovo Delegate in due course; decision
made to follow BirdLife’s delimitation of south-eastern Europe, excluding Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan,
but including Azerbaijan as part of the Caucasus region (with Armenia, Georgia and Turkey).
TOP 7:
Report on SMOG/SCALES
FS has sent a report around on the SMOG/SCALES projects. This will be added as an appendix to these
Minutes.
The work package 3.5 is now finished (with EBCC’s contribution being similar to the one in the 5.4 package). Several papers have been and will be published on the developments in this group. RF mentions
that it would be interesting to have a presentation at the next meeting on the results that have been accomplished in the project (LB will be presenting some of the results at the ECCB conference, anyway).
The sub-work package 5.4 started in February. This swp is about cross-scale monitoring of conservation
status and trends of biodiversity. In that sense, PECBMS philosophy perfectly fits in the main objectives.
Outputs from PECBMS data (summary data, no original data) could be used as a source for the
SCALES project, which has to be negotiated with the PECBMS team.
TOP 8:
Newsletter
The latest Newsletter is already half finished, VK is asked to write a section on the atlas and about the
link to the paper asking potential host organisations for atlas coordinator on the website (which should be
ready in early April). There will be mention that BCN news is to go digital. Short news are still lacking and
should be supplied by Board members within the next couple of weeks. Action Points for the Delegates
should increasingly be included in the Newsletter! The message to the Latvian government which still declines to provide money for the moitoring programmes should appear again. There could be news on the
new Dutch atlas and on the decisions about a new Danish atlas. A summary paragraph on the Mikulov
meeting should also still be delivered, best to have separate sections on the PECBMS, EBBA2 ASC and
BiE3 meetings.
TOP 9:
EBCC website
DN reports that the contents of the website have been extended by a new atlas section (project description, questionnaire results etc.) next to the old atlas, and the announcement of the Cluj conference.
A proposal has been sent in by Zdenĕk Vermouzek (CSO) to invest into the EBCC website in the framework of a proper three-year contract between CSO and EBCC (at costs of 1100€ per year). DN needs to
advise Board whether this is something EBCC should go for (considering the contents envisaged and
the financial investment for EBCC required). Investment in the website will certainly be necessary, but
the problem is that the decision is also dependent on where EBBA2 will be hosted (especially if it is not
CSO), as the atlas alone requires a lot of website structuring. The contract could be subject to annual
adaptations if need be.
A reminder, CSO clearly can only update the website if supplied with the necessary material.
TOP 10:
Report on PECBMS
Since the workshop in Mikulov is just over, there is no real news to report. The workshop was extremely
useful for the organisers in terms of feedback by national coordinators and future developments of the
PECBMS.
The questionnaire distributed at the workshop has not yet been analysed. But it will be reported on in
due course on the website.
TOP 11:
Recent data requests
An overview on recent data requests was distributed as an excel sheet by LB; 20 requests have been
received since 2010. Quite a few requests approved by Board have not been finalized completely and
are still in the pending stage. Corrections to the present list will be sent by RF to LB for completion.
Some requests do not have to be followed up because they have been pending for too long, but some
other cases should now be caught up with and finalized; and there should be a second excel sheet with
cases closed, so Board does not have to discuss it many more times.
The decision table on data charges still holds, i. e. private organisations will still have to pay for these
data.
TOP 12:
List of publications with EBCC affiliation
FS made a preliminary list of publications with EBCC affiliation, which fills a massive gap and is an excellent basis for future work. There should be one list which needs to be structured with respect to atlas
data and PECBMS data (two columns, some papers could be both); the former characteristic will be very
useful when trying to win funds for the EBBA2 project.
The “citation index” of the EBCC atlas should also be very nice information to collect. Google Scholar
mentions that the European Atlas has been cited 1082 times (which is an extremely high value).
TOP 13:
Strategic direction, “2020 vision/target”
RF prepared documents on the vision, mission statement (raison d’être) and strategic aims of EBCC, based on Richard Gregory’s paper on the strategic direction of April 2010. The statements in the latter were
mainly based on the achievements of the PECBMS project, and to a lesser extent on the scientific
output. Generally, there is little progress made outside funded (staff) time or projects. Now, there is a
need for a “policy paper”, the definition of target groups for our actions, and a paper on three- or six-year
project plans in order to achieve these aims.
TOP 14:
Wetlands International (WI) update
SN reports on the structure and on new developments within WI. Five major collective targets identified.
Several aspects discussed: Ecological network; International Waterbird Census (IWC); AEWA Conservation Report; Waterbird Population Estimates. There are gaps in technical capacity (e.g. for data management and publication output), and lack of such output in recent years has affected data influx as well.
A peer review of WI work was done in June 2011. The newly set up Waterbird Monitoring Partnership includes WI and its Specialist Groups, BI, EBCC (represented by VK), SOVON, BTO, ONCFS, Tour du
Valat, FACE, Arhus Univ., and a representative of the government members of WI. Current main aspects, and the most costly, are resourcing, coverage in countries, coaching, etc. (i.e. managerial tasks). National reports have been restored in the last couple of years. Methodology for calculating flyway trends
has been developed. Network development, on the other hand, has not yet improved, but funding for the
next two years is available to increase capacity building. Sufficient money also available now to bring
African national coordinators together at the pan-African meeting; WI will also be able to be present at
EBCC conference.
In future, create a more sustainable financing mechanism for the IWC (install a trust fund, into which
national schemes/governments should pay into).
Schemes in Africa incomplete, good capacity reached in West Africa though. Need to get into better
contact with organisations that have still good contacts in some of these countries.
Coordinators should probably meet in a workshop, if at all possible in a session after the actual Cluj conference, which needs to be discussed with the Cluj organisers.
TOP 15:
BiE3
There will be a Steering Group meeting on BiE3 in May, and Board awaits the results of that meeting.
TOP 16:
EBBA2, Progress report
EBBA2 ASC had its first three meetings since the last Board Meeting (in Sandy, Mikulov and Sempach).
VK sent out a short feedback report on the questionnaire results, this and an extended version with all
answers is filed in the dropbox. These are important documents which will be useful in the future as well
when having to contact individual countries. Currently there was so much positive feedback that pressure to provide immediate information to national coordinators is high. First guidelines will be put on the
website in spring. Time input for atlas, mainly to support initiatives to get funding was granted by RSPB
for staff time over two years (Daniel Hayhow), but this is limited to the period from July onwards – and is
complementary to the “real atlas coordinator”. But since workload for the atlas is high on several levels,
the need to install an atlas coordinator now is pressing.
ASC sees the necessity for improved structures and is thus looking for a host organisation for the atlas,
and one “proposal” (statement of interest) has already been sent in by CSO in Prague. However, there is
still the necessity to ask other organisations if they would be willing and capable to host an atlas
team/coordinator. A text for inviting such informal statements of interest has already been drafted and
will be sent out in early April. The view prevails that it should not be the host organisation (alone) to
choose the coordinator, but that ASC should be involved in the selection process.
Specific proposal needed to be able to receive the proper funding for the first year’s salary of the coordinator. There are several institutions willing to buy in to this project provided such a very specific proposal
(including an exact financial plan for the first year) is available in due course.
LB had talked to Sergi Herrando (Catalan Ornithological Institute) about possibilities to invest some two
months of staff time to support individual countries with setting up national atlas schemes. Several institutions will be willing to invest financial resources apart from the in-kind staff time already invested (e. g.
Swedish Ornithol. Soc. might have an interest in investing financial resources to help eastern countries,
if asked). The next steps will be to update the call to the potential host organisations and the guideline
papers, to ask specific organisations on their willingness to support the atlas, to put all other aspects into
the minutes of the ASC meetings which will be available to everybody in Board on the EBCC dropbox.
The time frame is to post the paper on the call for statements of interest on the internet and in the Newsletter a.s.a.p., receive responses by end of May and make a decision by June. Ideally, the coordinator
should be appointed to start work in 2012.
TOP 17:
Twinning/Development Officers report
HH has prioritised the countries for the Mikulov meeting, where there was a session on twinning. OK has
not yet managed to achieve a twinning cooperation with Belarus. But at the moment, the EBBA2 project
should have priority and will probably develop new possibilities for monitoring projects in those countries
in the future. On the other hand, support of national atlas or monitoring work can always be taken up by
individual Board members visiting these countries.
VK is happy to collect any initiatives that derive from individual (or national) activities.
TOP 18:
Eastern European developments, Russian breeding bird atlas.
Network of some 200 participants available in the Russian atlas project. After the pilot project in 2011
projected costs for each 50 x 50 km atlas square will amount to €400-500 (including all costs, e. g. hired
transportation etc.) or less, if other help or resources will be available. Financial support mainly sought
outside the country at the moment, as interest within Russia apparently rather limited.
Methodological help in form of drafted guidelines is now available thanks to VK. First “real” field season
will be in 2012 based on these guidelines. Minor changes in following years envisaged. Fieldwork by foreign ornithologists will be welcomed but might turn out to be rather expensive for individuals (visa needs
to be very specific, in need of invitation and facilitation!; scientific/technical visas, however, can be free of
charge], logistics, transport etc.), thus better to have groups of ornithologists covering larger areas (such
as some Finnish guys promising to cover parts of Karelia), otherwise work load for Russian secretariat
could be insurmountably high. In the first year, a small number of groups might be accommodated, and
using their experiences the information sheet for others could be improved and the message spread further. The Russian Secretariat was extended by two young staff members who started in October, mainly
working on the database (data input of squares of Moscow completed during the atlas project there).
MKs role as national coordinator for Russia now fully established. A small consortium was established
which will supervise and support the work. Many aspects have started, but are by far not settled yet
(“keep worried about Russia”). Apart from lack of funding and insufficient coverage, no online platform is
yet available in Russia (as WorldBirds has not gained any acceptance there); also modelling aspects are
not yet solved. On the other hand, developments in Russia are most encouraging. Improvements there
are essential for EBBA2 to be a success (if not, EBCC would have failed).
The Nordic Council of Ministers released an agreement recently which might be worth exploring for an
extension with respect to monitoring and atlas projects being included.
Need to discuss our wishes and ideas with current web portal champions Observado, Ornitho etc. to improve web-based data collecting systems; SOVON could take the lead in this. At a later stage it is reasonable to consider synergy effects in their processes of adapting to a range of new requirements (point
count or line transect data, IWC data etc.). Improved systems should work for a whole range of countries, not only Russia (Observado runs in the Russian language already). The web portal workshop of last
summer has taken first steps in this direction, so the final commitment of the portals (signing the agreement, subscribing to EBCCs ideas about data sharing and collaboration issues etc.) would now be the
next step necessary.
MK has contacted people in Ukraine and Belarus, who have committed themselves to start the EBBA2
process, but have not yet made decisions on who will be the national coordinator. RF has also taken up
contacts there; so there is hope for similar developments there soon. There is a further link via the WI
network.
Need to produce an information sheet on the EBBA2 project to initiate interest in ornithologists wishing to
travel abroad (e.g. Russia). ME will edit MKs Atlas proposal in order to condense it to a basic information
sheet on the lines of: "Are you going to Russia this summer? Do you want to contribute with your bird observations to the first ever Russian bird atlas...please contact MK: e-mail…. Further information on the
website... ".
TOP 19:
Date and venue for get together in autumn 2012
The next Board meeting shall best take place in Cluj in the second week of October 2012; should aim for
either 9th to 11th, or, alternatively, 10th to 12th October. The latter being preferable, as an excursion day
could be added on Saturday.
ASC Meeting in Glasgow can be on 28th August (before the ECCB conference).
TOP 20:

Any other business
Request from Rewilding Europe (=R.E.) for collaboration
R.E. is an international group trying to conserve and manage large nature areas (100.000 ha each)
within Europe. Five pilot areas have already been chosen. A scientific report on wildlife comeback (of
vertebrates) was provided by the Zoological Society of London. After criticism from RF, amongst others,
R.E. now proposes collaboration with EBCC and BirdLife to join the project and help deliver scientific
reports on certain bird species. EBCC’s engagement should be concentrated on the species accounts,
but there is the problem that EBCC might be partaking in the discussion on species selection or even
which of them could be chosen to be released in the wild (which could be detrimental to EBCC’s image).
Board envisages CSO to play a key role, e.g. by hiring staff or coordinating contributions of various
‘species experts’.

Letter to Latvian government on funding the monitoring work there needs rephrasing and be sent
out again.
RF closes the meeting on Friday at 12:30 and thanks Board members and observers very much for a
great meeting with stimulating discussion and many valuable contributions. He thanks VK very much for
her hard work organising a great meeting.
Ruud Foppen
Chairman
Hans-Günther Bauer
Secretary