Bonn, 27January 2017– CMS Deputy Executive Secretary, Bert Lenten welcomed a group of 19 scholars and one supervisor from the Klaus Töpfer Fellowship Programme, who visited Langer Eugen (“Tall Eugene”), the building that houses the Secretariats of the Bonn-based CMS Family.  The visit was part of a programme organized for the scholars by the German Federal Ministry of the Environment (BMUB) and the German Federal Nature Conservation Agency (BfN).

The Klaus Töpfer Fellowship Programme aims to strengthen organizations active in the nature conservation sector in Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, by developing the personal capacity of young professionals in the early stages of their career.

The scholars heard presentations on the Convention and the wider CMS Family from Florian Keil, the Coordinator of the Joint CMS/AEWA Communications Team, on the Central Asian Mammals Initiative from Yelizaveta Protas, the acting Associate Programme Officer in the Terrestrial Species Team and from Suren Gazaryan, the Associate Programme Officer from EUROBATS.  Tilman Schneider of the Avian Team also joined the meeting to help answer questions relating to bird conservation.

More information on the Klaus Töpfer Fellowship Programme can be found on the BfN’s website.  The Programme is named after fomer UNEP Executive Director, Professor Klaus Töpfer.