Bonn, 7 November 2011 - The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has just published a list of the best twenty projects it has funded to showcase twenty years of engagement in the field of environmental protection.

Among the top twenty are two projects with strong involvement from the CMS Family. One is the “Development of a Wetland Site and Flyway Network for Conservation of the Siberian Crane and Other Migratory Waterbirds in Asia”. This project was closely linked to the CMS MOU for the species and both the CMS Secretariat and its main MOU-partner, the Wisconsin-based NGO, the International Crane Foundation, played a significant part. The second is “Enhancing Conservation of the Critical Network of Sites of Wetlands Required by Migratory Waterbirds on the African/Eurasian Flyways (Wings Over Wetlands) WOW”, in which the AEWA Secretariat was part of the implementing partnership. This is a further accolade for the WOW project, which has already won the Esri award for the best interactive web map for its Critical Site Network Tool.

UNEP is, along with UNDP and the World Bank, an Implementing Agency of the GEF and is the only GEF Agency whose core business is the environment.

[see the full Top-20 list on the GEF Website]