Commemoration
World Migratory Bird Day 2023
World Migratory Bird Day is an annual global awareness campaign celebrated on the second Saturday of May and October. This year it falls on the 14th of May. The commemorative day has been designated by the United Nations Environment Programme to educate and raise awareness about the conservation of migratory birds and their habitats.
The theme for this year is "Water: Sustaining Bird Life." The campaign will highlight the importance of water to the life cycles of migratory birds and highlight important actions to protect water resources and aquatic ecosystems, as the availability of clean water is increasingly under threat from both increasing human demand for water and issues of pollution and climate change.
Already since 2019, World Migratory Bird Day has played a major role in the work of both Hanns Seidel Foundation and its partners in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Their focus here is on the migratory birds of the East Asian-Australasian Flyway (EAAF), such as the Spoon-billed sandpiper, the Dalmatian pelican, and the Black-capped kingfisher. However, the Spoon-billed sandpiper is called by a different name in DPRK (주걱부리도요) than in South Korea (넓적부리도요).