September 2016 Report

 

During September the NCC team in collaboration with the Municipality team carried out the Falco eleonorae breeding colony monitoring at the project islets and HOS field team carried out the Eleonora’s falcon population census covering all of Andros island plus the islets. The numbers seems to indicate that the population is stable.

During this month, inspection of project islets in relation to rat presence revealed signs of recolonization at the Gavrionisia islet complex. Urgent field measures are planned to take place from November onwards, to treat with the problem, after the departure of eleonora’s falcons from the project sites.

For a thorough assessment of the actual impact of the concrete project actions to the target species, under the framework of the E2 action for monitoring of the project performance, NCC has decided to collaborate with an external expert (Dr Stavros Xirouchakis from the Natural History Museum of Crete), who will assess project interventions in the field, as well as plans and reports of the project actions, in order to prepare an external evaluation report, with recommendations for the after life period. This report will be delivered with the final project report. A similar procedure has been followed during the Falco eleonorae life project implementation, with very useful outcome for the project performance.

Concerning the procedures for the formal approval of the SPA management Plan, the interaction and collaboration with the Ministry officers has continued, and more effort has been invested for speeding up their performance in order for a final outcome to be achieved within the next few months.

On September 26th, the project closing conference took place in Athens, at a central hotel. The speakers presented the project actions, results and benefits to the people attending the conference. Invited participants included Andros stakeholders, policy makers on the central, regional and local level, environmental ngo’s, other life projects, various groups related to Andros and/or its development, etc.

Finally, regular visits to the project pigeon towers were made and patrolling at the project areas continued normally throughout the month.