An Abu Dhabi-funded programme to build artificial nests for
falcons could provide benefits for impoverished schools in Mongolia.

Mongolian children in areas where the nests are built have been forging
links with overseas schools, sharing stories about falconry and their culture.

In return, children overseas have been raising funds to help modernise
schools in Mongolia.

The project to link schools in different countries is the latest development
to come from the artificial nests programme, which was started in 2009 with
funding from the Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi, and aims to help increase the
numbers of saker falcons in the wild.

Mongolia is the only country with a Cites-sanctioned trade in falcons, and
the programme was designed to ensure the trade was sustainable.

Nicola Dixon, manager of the artificial nests programme at the UK-based
International Wildlife Consultants, said the school links programme was about
ensuring some of the benefits of the trade trickled down to the local
community.

“At the moment, communities aren”t benefiting at all from the trade in
falcons,” she said. “For them to benefit, we need to link schools up
through the programme.”

She said that a pilot study this year with a school in Bayan, Mongolia and
one in Cardiff, Wales, had already paid dividends.

Through coffee mornings and collections in their lunch hour, children at
Glyncoed Junior School had already raised Dh6,000 of the Dh16,000 they needed
to provide internet access at a school in Bayan, in Mongolia”s central Tov
province.

The schools are already communicating with each other, sharing ideas about
falcon conservation and learning about falconry in both Mongolia and the UAE.

Six more schools in the UK and the US – though none yet in the UAE – are
signed up to link with six schools in Mongolia next year.

The eventual goal is to have schools in each of the 20 areas in Mongolia
where artificial nests are installed participating in the programme.

Ms Dixon said the Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi were discussing whether
schools in the capital could participate in the programme, although no final
decision had been made.

“It is important for children in the Emirates to learn about falconry
and falcon conservation, as this is an important part of their heritage,”
she said. “It would be great to eventually have schools from Abu Dhabi
linked with schools in Mongolia.”

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