US-West Africa Workshop: Niger River Aquatic and Riparian Vertebrate Conservation, Bamako, Mali, January 2001

The University Of Louisiana At Monroe, Monroe LA

Investigators

Abstract

0080699 Pezold This award supports ten US and four African participants in the US-West Africa Workshop on Niger River Aquatic and Riparian Vertebrate Conservation, to be held in Bamako, Mali, January 2001. Overall, approximately 40 scientists, policy makers, and NGO representatives from the United States, Mali, Benin, Niger, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, and the European Union will participate. The co-organizers are Professor Frank L. Pezold, with the Museum of Natural History at Northeast Louisiana University, and Professor Mohamed Miaga, of the Department of Biology at the University of Mali. The participants, with their backgrounds in systematics, ecology, genetics, and behavior, will bring diverse perspectives to conservation questions and issues for the Niger River basin. The goals of the workshop are to establish collaborative associations that will stimulate multinational basic ecological and systematic research, and facilitate effective integration of vertebrate conservation initiatives in the Niger River basin. The Niger River and its surrounding area is a center of diversity. The river contains at least 243 fish species, representing 36 families (14 of which are endemic to the African continent). Additionally, the Niger River basin's floodplain wetlands provide habitat for both sedentary and migratory populations of semi-aquatic and terrestrial birds, bats, rodents, crocodilians, frogs, toads, and snakes, as well as migrating elephants. But little is known about the distribution and ecology of most of the fish species, and even for many of the larger riparian and terrestrial vertebrates basic information on their biology and ecology is scarce. The riparian and aquatic ecosystems supported by the Niger River are now being threatened by the increasing desertification of the Sahel, by the competing needs of wildlife and human populations, and by pollution. Conservation initiatives which are soundly based on scientific findings are needed to help alleviate the pressure on these threatened ecosystems. The workshop setting will enable the participants to identify mutual areas of research interest, and begin to establish long-term collaborations on the basic ecology and systematics of West African vertebrates. Also, they will begin to develop a shared international electronic database of species distributions, frequencies, and accessory ecological information, and they will start to create national reference collections. This workshop is being jointly funded by the Division of International Programs and the Division of Environmental Biology.