Initiatives 

Publications 

Raphaël Billé

Program Director

Living Mediterranean Report

Thanks to the meticulous work carried out by a team of the Tour du Valat , the Living Mediterranean Report presents the most complete synthesis ever carried out on the evolution of the biodiversity of Mediterranean vertebrates since 1993. The main results of this report are presented here.

Questions for...

Khalil Attia is the Director of the Specially Protected Areas Regional Activity Centre – SPA/RAC – based in Tunisia. The SPA/RAC was established by the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention and its Protocols to assist Mediterranean countries in implementing the Protocol concerning Specially Protected Areas and Biological Diversity. Following the publications of the Living Mediterranean Report, he answers the questions of the Tour du Valat.

600 flamingo chicks ringed on the Salin d’Aigues-Mortes!

Once again the flamingos have chosen to nest at the Salin d’Aigues-Mortes with about 15,000 adult Greater Flamingos and 4,500 chicks.

Publication of the Tour du Valat’s Activity Report 2020

The Tour du Valat’s 2020 Activity Report has been published. This document aims at presenting our main achievements of the year, which are the results of numerous fruitful collaborations with our partners, be they institutional, scientific, technical or financial.

The Tour du Valat Estate is part of the IUCN Green List of protected areas

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has admitted ten new sites in Switzerland, France, Italy to the IUCN Green List of Protected and Conserved Areas, the global standard recognising the best-managed sites on the planet.

A new consortium of six international organizations will strive to protect Mediterranean biodiversity

In the context of major global mobilizations to protect biodiversity, aiming to support the new objectives to protect the planet and given the many challenges affecting the Mediterranean region, the organizations MedWet (the Mediterranean Wetlands Initiative of Ramsar), MedPan (Mediterranean Protected Areas Network), PIM (Mediterranean Small Islands Initiative), Tour du Valat (TdV), AIFM (International Association for Mediterranean Forests) and IUCN-Med (IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation), with the support of Conservatoire du littoral, have signed the memorandum of understanding. This memorandum will mark the launch of the Mediterranean Consortium to protect Biodiversity.

Biodiversity: 17 species of European plants believed to be extinct recovered

An international team of researchers has rehabilitated the status of 17 plant species deemed to be extinct in Europe for many decades through a taxonomic review and a verification of their rediscovery in the wild or the presence of specimens in ex situ collections. This will make it possible to implement conservation programs for many of these species, still rare and/or threatened with “new” extinction. The study has just been published in the prestigious journal Nature Plants.

Loss of the last of the musketeers

John Walmsley one of the pioneers of the Tour du Valat along with Alan Johnson, Hubert Kowalski and Heinz Hafner passed away on the 30th of May this year at the Sambuc, in Camargue where he lived. John arrived at the Tour du Valat in 1967 and worked there up until the 90s. During this period he published more than twenty scientific articles. Initially assigned to the bird ringing operations, he then studied the nesting of charadriiformes and Common Shellducks, a species of bird belonging to the Anatidae (family that includes ducks, geese, swans…).

After the passing of Hubert, this is another personality from the past, a character and a well of knowledge that leaves us.

Monitoring the migration of juvenile spoonbills 2021 – a participatory project!

This is the third and final year of monitoring juvenile spoonbills in the project in partnership with Tamar Lok, researcher at NIOZ, the Netherlands. The goal is to study the importance of genetic and environmental factors in determining the migration routes of juvenile spoonbills.

International environmental Alliance issues Red Alert to prevent destruction of Erimitis wetlands

International environmental Alliance issues Red Alert; experts urge Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis to prevent destruction of Erimitis wetlands.

Technical reports of the Mediterranean Waterbird Network (MWN)

Since 2017, the Mediterranean Waterbird Network (MWN) has been exchanging with other Mediterranean countries, in addition to the five historical North African partners.

Discussions with these new countries (France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, but also Portugal, Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, Northern Macedonia) have led to the development of a scientific poster to be presented at an international conference (EBBC, 2019), a scientific paper to be reviewed in a scientific journal and also summary reports on the status of waterbird counts in 10 of the countries actively participating in ROEM.

Lake Ohrid, third Wetland of International Importance in North Macedonia

North Macedonia has designated Lake Ohrid as its third and largest “Ramsar Site” (no. 2449 on the List of Wetlands of International Importance). The Site straddles the mountainous border between North Macedonia and Albania. It has been a World Heritage Property since 1979.

The state of lagoon waters in the Rhone-Mediterranean and Corsica

With the support of the IFREMER and the Tour du Valat, the French Rhone-Mediterranean-Corsica Water Agency has recently published a “water and knowledge” document on the state of the lagoon waters in the French Mediterranean coast.

The World Conservation Congress of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) will be held from September 3 to 11, 2021 in Marseille. Tour du Valat will be present through many events.

The 13th national seminar of Ramsar sites actors will be held from Wednesday 20 to Friday 22 October 2021, in Valenciennes (59, France) on the theme "Water and wetlands".