IAF eBulletin Summer 2022
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Important note to delegates, to club representatives and to translators: please don't forget to forward this eBulletin to your club members and all the falconer you know, especially the many language versions, even if it is by a "share" on social media - you will magnify the falconer's voice!
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This eBulletin is available in other languages thanks to volunteer translators. If you would like to take part, email muehle@iaf.org . If your language does not appear, we upload late translations onto the Facebook page
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The ninth session of the General Assembly of the States Parties to the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage was held at UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, from Tuesday 5 to Thursday 7 July 2022. Over three days, 180 States Parties gathered and discussed a number of issues that are important for the safeguarding of living heritage around the world and the future of the Convention.
As an accredited NGO, the IAF was able to send a delegation and encouraged interested parties to follow the live-stream. Please click on the image for more information.
In line with IAF's policy of encouraging young falconers to take part in international conventions and environmental agreements, our delegation included an Italian student, a falconer,who graduated last year with a thesis on the Archives for ICH and the 2003 Convention.
We made a brief intervention:
“This convention is the essence of what is good in the world. It balances the bad part of democracy, which is when the voice of the majority completely drowns out the voice of the minority; when governments do not listen to the small people.
This year we have attended celebratory events in the new countries to be listed in the extension of the ICH listing of “Falconry, a living human heritage”. Practitioners of falconry in these countries could constitute less than 0.001% of the population, which is not great when a government is looking for a majority, that 0.001% would normally be ignored.
However the NGOs magnify the voice of the small people and when those NGOs have both the confidence of their communities and the respect of their government, which can be got through knowing their subject intimately and by knowing how the UNESCO ICH works.
This NGO, the IAF has used, this year, at least four times, the ethical principles to protect our element in various countries.
- Ethical Principle 4:
All interactions with communities, groups and, where appropriate, individuals...should be characterized by collaboration, dialogue, negotiation and transparent consultation, and must be subject to their free, prior, sustained and informed consent.
- Ethical Principle 7:
Communities, groups and individuals who create cultural heritage immaterial should benefit from the protection of moral and material interests resulting from said estate.
In other words, governments who list elements and who support the listing of elements in other countries, have obligations towards the communities listed, not obligations towards their opponents,
This convention is also the essence of diplomacy, when four, fourteen or twenty-four nations join together to protect a common cultural element they have pride in it which forms a strong bond. In the NGO we are seeing, again and again, small diplomatic advances between nations through our element. Falconry and the other ICH-listed elements can and should be used as diplomatic tools between nations.
This is a great convention, thank you all for all your work.”
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UNESCO has developed a free Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Living Heritage and Sustainable Development in collaboration with the International Information and Networking Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (ICHCAP), the SDG Academy from the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the UNESCO Chair for Research on Intangible Cultural Heritage and Cultural Diversity of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
The MOOC is composed of six modules, each consisting of three to five related chapters under a common theme, including an overview of living heritage in the spirit of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and the relationship between living heritage and topics such as gender, education, health, income generation, agriculture, climate change and peacebuilding. The course is self-paced, which means that all course components are available and can be completed at any time until 31 August 2022. The MOOC can be accessed for free via the edX website. The video chapters are also available at the SDG Academy library.
IAF is an Accredited International Non-Government to the UNESCO ICH and we have been asked to share the information about this timely MOOC, which invites all of us to explore the multifaceted and important relationship between living heritage and sustainable development, with a view to further strengthening the role of culture for development, an aspect of the Falconry Listing which has already been of vital importance in several countries.
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2022 IAF Council of Delegates Meeting
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The meeting will be centered on the town of Pińczów in the south of Poland, one and a half hours drive from Kraków airport, or two and a half from Warsaw. The nearest train station is at Busko Zdroj.
Attendees will need to make their own arrangements for transport from the airport to the venue. Car-hire is relatively inexpensive in Poland and cars may be shared for transportation to the hunting grounds.
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Tentative Programme
Tuesday, November 8th
Arrival of IAF Staff and Delegates
Day 1. Wednesday, November 9th
08.30 - 12.30 IAF 2022 Delegates Meeting
13.00 - 14.00 Lunch
14.00 - 18.00 Free afternoon and opportunity to join hunting groups
Free Evening.
Day 2. Thursday, November 10
09.00 Formal Opening, welcome speeches and UNESCO IHC Ceremony
14.00 - 18.00 Free afternoon and opportunity to join hunting groups
19.00 - 20.00 IAF president and Guest speeches
20.00 - 22.00 Gala dinner + raffle for Peregrine Project
Day 3. Friday, November 11 - National Independence Day of Poland
09.00 Hunting Day
20.00 Polish Club social evening - open for IAF guests
Day 4. Saturday, November 12
9.00 Hunting day
17.00 Closing Ceremonies
Day 5. Sunday, November 13
Departures
Please note that only IAF Board and Advisory Committee members, National Delegates and official Club Representatives, and Individual Subscribers may attend the actual Council of Delegates Meeting. Observers may attend at the invitation of the IAF President. Queries to info@iaf.org
Registration Form to attend the IAF Council of Delegates Meeting only
Our hosts among the Polish falconry community are making arrangements to invite other international guests who might not be able to attend the IAF meeting
Registration Form to attend the activities offered by the Polish Falconry Clubs (to be completed by both IAF and non-IAF participants).
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Bern Convention and the Convention on Migratory Species
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Between the 7th and the 10th of June IAF took part in the joint Meeting of the Bern Convention SFPs and CMS MIKT on Illegal Killing, Taking and Trade of Wild Birds and the Meeting of the Bern Convention Group of Experts on the Conservation of Birds. The two meetings were held in Valencia, Spain (MIKT 5).
This meeting was of key relevance to IAF, to highlight the positive role that falconers play in monitoring and working against illegal killing of birds. IAF’s standing as a core stakeholder, was highlighted by the positive reception of the interventions made by IAF relating to the capacity of falconers to use cultural facets and direct contacts with IPLCs (Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities), to bring them together with cultural institutions such as UNESCO and with falconer-led conservation efforts, examples of which are showcased in the Sakernet(https://www.sakernet.org), Perdixnet(https://www.perdixnet.org) and Falconet(https://www.falconet.org) sustainable use networks that IAF runs.
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Presenters highlighted the strength that peer-pressure has in changing attitudes and encouraging communities to fight the illegal killing of birds. The strength of such Multilateral Environmental Agreements is the collaboration between states, international institutions, conventions and NGOs which improve communications and promote scientific evidence-based solutions to environmental challenges.
IAF offered its assistance to CMS and the Bern Convention for the translation of core strategy documents into several languages which IAF can do thanks to the hard work and commitment of its volunteer translators in ITWG. This shows the enthusiasm of the international falconry community in collaborating with institutions for the conservation of raptors and habitats.
There was a presentation by CMS on electrocutions. Julian Mühle made an intervention on this, stressing the role played by falconers, by the IAF and particularly by the Environment Agency in Abu Dhabi and the MBZ fund in mitigating thousands of kilometers of dangerous lines across Asia and into Europe and North Africa.
This was the first opportunity for an in-person meeting since the pandemic began and the usefulness of networking was immediately obvious. Besides using the networking opportunity to correct misinformation about falconry, we strengthened our relationship with the Raptors MoU, now led by Umberto Gallo Orsi, and we made major contacts, with whom we hope to co-operate on future projects.
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IAF attended IPBES, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Bonn, Germany, which is the interdisciplinary, intergovernmental platform for top scientists from all 132 member states to work with NGOs, UN agencies, intergovernmental bodies, multilateral environmental agreements, experts and leading researchers to study biodiversity and produce reports with policy recommendations with deep impacts on biodiversity policy across the world.
These reports take around 4 years to make and are each approximately 1000 pages in length. They are the culminated efforts of 100s of scientists to collate the scientific communities current understanding on biodiversity. In addition to the long reports, a shorter, 31 page report is drafted as a SPM (Summary for Policymakers). The exact text of the SPM is then negotiated, discussed and amended line by line.
The most successful outcome from a falconry point of view was the successful modification of the Summary for Policymakers to reflect the sustainability of hunting for mammal populations across a 20 year trend. This is a summary at a global level supported by numerous studies. In the proposed policymaker report summary it had originally been represented as a declining population tendency, which could have reflected badly on the sustainability of hunting and, of course, falconry. To achieve the changes, IAF lobbied the national delegations of Germany, Belgium, Argentina and the Netherlands, and worked with IUCN experts and with FACE who provided invaluable scientific information.
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IAF Journal and eNewsletter articles
If you have something to share, the IAF wants to hear about it!
We need reports of what is going on in your part of the world, news about issues that affect falconry where you are or anything of cultural or sporting importance that you wish to share with the global falconry family.
If you are able to send us your content in English as well as in Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic or Russian, please do so. Please send to us lovely, nice, big, high-resolution pictures (at least 1 MB) - Remember to submit the source for the content and photos.
- eNewsletter Deadline: July 2022
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Permitting INDIVIDUAL SUBSCRIBERS allows IAF to recognize and encourage individuals who might not be part of a member club, to attend IAF events and to volunteer for roles within our organization. Individual subscribers also receive a copy of the IAF's International Journal of Falconry, a high quality publication issued annually.
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Note to Delegates and Club Representatives: please forward these IAF eBulletins to all your members. Please also feel free to use eBulletin articles in your printed newsletters and journals.
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