Inauguration of Life + Cap DOM at Ménigoute

At a special "overseas"-themed soiree at Ménigoute the representatives of AOMA (Martinique), of GEPOG (French Guiana), of SEOR (Réunion Island), of the Réunion National Park and of the LPO will present next October 28th at 7pm, the first European programme for the conservation of wildlife undertaken jointly by the separate dominions and associations. “Overseas” aperitifs will be provided.

The programme Life+ Cap DOM (overseas departments) entitled “2010–2015, Conservation of Priority Birdlife in the DOM” and co-ordinated at the national level by the LPO (League for the Protection of Birds) has for its purpose protecting the threatened biodiversity in the DOM. The programme sets out three ambitious objectives: using new techniques of conservation management, reconciling site-conservation and economic activity, and recommending methodologies that take into account the needs of birdlife.

Pioneer actions in three DOMs

Birds are at the heart of this programme because they are the best known and among the most reliable indicators of the environment’s conservation status. So, innovative conservation activities will be set up by the programme’s co-ordinators and their local scientific and institutional partners, to deal with endangered species such as the Guianan Cock-of-the-rock, the Réunion Cuckoo-shrike and the White-breasted Thrasher of Martinique.

Tools to recognise, to manage and to make note of the birdlife will be tested at pilot sites, then set up in the overseas territories and neighbouring countries, to encourage their use locally.

France’s biodiversity is overseas

The great majority of France’s vertebrate fauna (98% of its species) is concentrated in just 22% of its territory, overseas. There are more endemic bird species in France’s overseas territories than in the whole of mainland Europe. However, the decline in the wild flora and fauna of those territories is substantial. France ranks seventh in the world for the number of endangered species.

Currently, the means to do something about that decline are lacking. Europe’s tools for the protection of nature, such as the Habitats-Flora-Fauna and Birdlife Directives, and the Natura 2000 network, are not in fact applicable in these regions. Life+ Cap DOM intends to reverse that situation.

Conservation activists in these areas urgently need to be given the human, legal and financial means to create tools and techniques adapted to their ecological and socio-economic situations. The institutional and cultural basis of the numerous partners of this programme, their ecological expertise and their creativity are assets that can enable them to work rapidly and in the field to make the protection of biodiversity central to these territories’ development.

This programme is supported by the Life+ European financial framework for the environment which includes a sub-section for biodiversity, which has operated since 2007 in the DOM.

Communiqué de Presse - Festival de Ménigoute fête le lancement du "Life+ Cap DOM"