On 6 November, 2001 the UNEP/CMS Secretariat had the honor of hosting, at the UN premises in Bonn, the presentation of the "Emmy and Karl Kaus Award 2001" for outstanding private initiatives for animals and nature. This year's awards went to the Southern African National Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) for having organized the rescue of approximately 35,000 African Penguins from an oil spill and to Mr. Reto Zingg, founder and project leader of the CICONIA Foundation for Storks. Both the African Penguins and the storks are migratory species.

Reto Zingg was honored for his lifelong contributions to nature conservation and particularly for the reintroduction of the white stork and the black stork in Central Europe. A teacher by profession, Mr. Zingg considers educating the public on the importance of habitat conservation as one of his foremost goals.

The Central European breeding habitats of white storks are severely threatened and in the Swiss Rhine Valley the species, which is listed on the CMS Appendix II, had been virtually extinct for at least three decades. Thanks to CICONIA, white storks are now breeding again in Switzerland and Austria.

The Southern African National Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds received the award for its spectacular rescue of the world's most viable population of African Penguins - also a species listed on CMS Appendix II. In December 1999 the vessel "Treasury" sunk at the entrance to Cape Town Harbor. The oil spill contaminated a large area of the sea's surface, severely threatening nearby beaches and coastal areas where the penguins nest. Immediately after the accident, SANCCOB coordinated the rescue efforts. 15,000 birds were washed. In addition, 19,000 birds were evacuated - thanks to an experiment by the scientists of the Avian Demography Unit of Cape Town University. The penguins were collected by volunteers and transported to a coastal region approximately 800 km northeast of Cape Town. As expected by the scientists, the birds returned to the Cape Town region about a fortnight later when the oil spill was over.

The success of the rescue measures has been remarkable and benefitted from the innovative scientific approaches of the scientists as well as the awareness and voluntary work of the Cape Town people. As the South-African Minister of Environment and Tourism, the Hon. Valli Moosa, enthusiastically reported in his opening remarks at a conference on the new CMS agreement for albatrosses and petrels, the interest and involvement of the Cape Town people had been overwhelming. Every day thousands had volunteered to assist in collecting, transporting and cleaning the penguins.

The scientists of the Avian Demography Unit at Cape Town University are now also very actively involved in the development of a new Regional CMS Agreement for the protection of 15 South African seabird species which also include the African Penguin. In his opening speech at the award ceremony, CMS Executive Secretary Mr Arnulf Müller-Helmbrecht requested Minister Nomasonto M. Sibanda-Thusi of the South African Embassy in Germany, who accepted the award on behalf of SANCOBB, to examine whether her government could support the initiative.

Three years ago, the Emmy and Karl Kaus Award Ceremony was hosted by CMS for the first time. One of the awards went to Dr. Dieter Haas, project leader of a working group of the German Nature Conservation Association NABU that works to protect birds from electrocution on power lines. In the meantime the working group has influenced the amendment of the German Nature Conservation law, which, if so decided by Parliament, will finally solve this problem in Germany.

The issue of migratory birds dying on power lines is expected to be discussed at the forthcoming CMS Conference of the Parties to be held in Bonn in September 2002, which will address the global problem on a global level.