The eighth episode of our CitSciAsia Meets… interview series has been posted, with Ko Lay Win from the Myanmar Crane Team project telling us about his work engaging local people living in the Myanmar wetlands to help protect the worlds tallest flying bird
CitSciAsia Meets… is an interview series focusing on the citizen scientists in Asia. If you’ve still not seen the CitizenScience.Asia youtube channel you should check it out and subscribe here. We have recorded a number of interviews with Citizen Science practitioners from across the giant landmass of Asia, including previous postings covering Malaysian and Japanese City Nature Challenge participation, environmental citizen science strategies in China and Hong Kong community ant surveys. We hope these videos will help provide a forum for Citizen Scientists interested in sharing their stories with the community and the world.
In this new installment we had the pleasure to head out into the waterways of the Ayeyarwady river delta in Myanmar to meet with Ko Layy Winn from the Myanmar Crane Team. Ko Layy is the Myanmar Project Manager for the International Crane Foundation, running their project working to conserve and protect the population of Sarus Cranes living in the Ayeyarwady river delta of Myanmar.
Sarus cranes (Antigone antigone) are the worlds tallest flying bird, standing at a height of up to 1.8m (5 ft 11 in) and classified as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because of habitat destruction to the wetlands they live in. The Eastern Sarus Crane subspecies (A. a. sharpii) that occurs in South East Asia is a smaller population than the Indian sarus crane subspecies, and an isolated population of these breed in the lush rice fields of the Ayeyarwady river delta of Western Myanmar.
Ko Layy and the Myanmar Crane team carry out surveys and work closely with the local community to help protect the birds. Developing a series of Sarus Crane posters in local languages, distributing them and carrying out outreach in local schools and community centers to help more people learn about and appreciate and protect these special birds through their education efforts. Meeting him in the field, Ko Layy shows us some of their breeding sights and told us a bit about this important work engaging citizens in conservation work.
Follow and find out more about the project on their facebook page as well as on the International Crane Foundation website. We’d like to thank Ko Layy Winn, the International Crane Foundation, and Frank Thierfelder for the pictures used here. The project is supported by the International Crane Foundation, Yangon University, Disney Conservation, Leiden Conservation Fund, Conservation Food and Health Foundation, and the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Yangon.
Watch this space for new videos, and you’d like to be interviewed or share stories and videos relating to Citizen Science please let us know.
CitSciAsia Meets… the Myanmar Crane Team was originally published in The CitizenScience.Asia Journal on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
