The Pointe-a-Pierre Wild­fowl Trust has been recog­nised as one of the world’s best wet­land vis­i­tor cen­tres. Their suc­cess was an­nounced at the Con­fer­ence of the glob­al Wet­lands Con­ven­tion, known as Ras­mar COP14, un­der­way in Gene­va, Switzer­land, re­cent­ly.

The Star Wet­land Cen­tre Award is a new ini­tia­tive to recog­nise best prac­tices in eco­tourism and ed­u­ca­tion at wet­lands. It is co­or­di­nat­ed by Wet­land Link In­ter­na­tion­al (WLI), a sup­port net­work for staff and vol­un­teers at 300 wet­land vis­i­tor cen­tres.

The Pointe-a-Pierre Wild­fowl Trust was one of 23 awardees se­lect­ed by an in­ter­na­tion­al pan­el of ex­pe­ri­enced wet­lands pro­fes­sion­als.

"The judges were par­tic­u­lar­ly struck by great in­clu­sive­ness, in­clud­ing ac­cess for dif­fer­ent abil­i­ties and pro­grammes for vul­ner­a­ble groups," says Chris Ros­tron, the Head of WLI and leader of the Star awards process.

"With a strong ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­gramme, it is al­so an im­por­tant ex­am­ple of so­cial and en­vi­ron­men­tal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty from com­pa­nies."

PaP Wildfowl Trust Main Breeding Lake.

About Wet­land Link In­ter­na­tion­al

Wet­land Link In­ter­na­tion­al is a glob­al net­work of wet­land ed­u­ca­tion cen­tres. We de­fine a wet­land ed­u­ca­tion cen­tre as ‘any wet­land where there is an in­ter­ac­tion be­tween peo­ple and wildlife and CEPA (com­mu­ni­ca­tions, ed­u­ca­tion and pub­lic aware­ness) ac­tiv­i­ty oc­curs in sup­port of wet­land con­ser­va­tion aims.’ WLI is sup­port­ed by two staff mem­bers, based at the Wild­fowl and Wet­lands Trust (WWT) at Slim­bridge, UK; and a strong re­gion­al pres­ence in Asia led by the Ram­sar Re­gion­al Cen­tre–East Asia.

President Paula-Mae Weekes recommissioning the Wildfowl Trust's specially designed boardwalk for the differently-abled.