Progress on the ICBP/OSME 
Important Bird Areas in the Middle 
East Project 
Mike Evans 
Since the start of the project in September last year, contacts have been 
made with most countries in the region. Attendance at two conferences 
concerning the Middle East allowed me to meet up with people from 
government agencies and NGOs concerned with nature conservation in 
the following countries: Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, 
Kuwait, Bahrain and Iran. 
The first conference was on "Protected Areas in the Middle East and 
North Africa", held at short notice in Tunis in October, and the second 
was on "Conservation of wetlands and waterfowl in South and West 
Asia" in Karachi (and is reported on separately elsewhere in this issue). 
The main result of discussing and promoting the project with all these 
people was to gain very useful advice on the project's development, 
details of further contacts, and up-to-date information on bird 
conservation activities occurring in each country. 
Initially, the project has needed a set of criteria by which to assess 
objectively the importance of a site for birds, and this has now been 
developed with the help of the International Waterfowl and Wetlands 
Research Bureau. The judgements are based mainly on either "species" 
or "habitats"; for instance, whether the site supports globally threatened 
species, whether it supports signi ficant numbers of the world population 
or fly way population or biogeographical population of a species, whether 
the site is a particularly good example of a bird community with 
important "dispersed" species, whether the site has great importance or 
potential for education/recreation concemingbird conservation, and so 
on. 
In addition, the questionnaire that will be used to gather the data has 
been designed and completed, as has the computer database which will 
be used to analyse some of the information gathered. As far as possible, 
data collection for this project will be coordinated by those people with 
most knowledge, competence and current involvement in birds/ 
conservation in the country concerned. Several countries have accepted 
this responsibility already. 
So the stage is now set for data collection to begin in most countries. I 
would appeal to all OSME members who can provide information on 
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