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Escape the daily routine, enjoy your holidays by doing exciting conservation activities, meet new people in a healthy and relaxed environment in Taiwan!
Photo by ：David Wu
Green Holiday is a weekend volunteer tour for habitat conservation conducted by Wild Bird Society of Japan. We encourage people to consider nature and to take action for wildlife through the programme.
The project started from 2009 and it has been held at 3 sanctuaries of WBSJ, the site of Red-crowned Crane in Kushiro, the site of Blakiston’s Fish Owl in Nemuro, and the site of waterfowl in Kaga.
The unique point of Green Holiday is not just the practical conservation work but also the lecture and guided tour by rangers are included to study wildlife and local history, and to communicate with local society.
From 2014, WBSJ starts to develop a cooperation project on International Eco-tour “Green Holiday in Taiwan” with Ecotourism Taiwan.
Photo by ：Yuzo Nakagawa
Barn Swallow is one of the most familiar birds in Japan. According to the national survey, Barn Swallow tends to decline in Japan. One potential reason is they have lost feeding grounds full of insects such as rice paddies and farm land which slightly disappeared in these days. Another potential reason is changed style of buildings. Swallow build their nest under the eaves in Japan. In recent days, old style Japanese houses which provided good opportunities for swallow to build nests have been often replaced to modern houses.
In Japan, the annual barn swallow survey has been conducted by “Ishikawa Prefecture Healthy Citizens Campaign Promotion Head Quarters” over 40 years.
Every year, the primary school 6th graders of Ishikawa (11to 12 years old, approx..13000children) participate the survey. Survey result from over 200 schools are compiled and published on line:
http://www.pref.ishikawa.jp/seikatu/kouryu/undou2PFD/tubame/english_survey.pdf
This simple survey, observe barn swallows in neighbourhood the school on one day during that week of swallow breeding season, and record the number of swallows and nests, has been so successful in gathering information about barn swallows.
Photo by ：David Wu
Barn swallow lives almost all over the world and is universally popular across both hemispheres. It makes Annual journey from its northern breeding grounds to its southern wintering grounds. Barn swallow is a common bird in Taiwan and Japan; we can observe their breeding every spring to summer. Barn swallows indicate the change of environment very close to our life.
Wild Bird Society of Japan and Ecotourism Taiwan are developing the swallow communication tour between Taiwan to Japan as “Green Holiday in Taiwan”. Our achievement of the project is to introduce a swallow observation programme to Taiwan, and protect wetland habitat for swallows and biodiversity.
★Contact
For more details, please contact Wild Bird Society of Japan
E-mail:[email protected]
Planning: Wild Bird Society of Japan
Local coordinator: Ecotourism Taiwan
Support: Ishikawa Prefecture Healthy Citizens Campaign Promotion Headquarters
Travel arrangement: Japan Eco Planning Service
