Special Thanks
Dear Team,
The Pilot Yangtze Freshwater Dolphin Expedition 06 was a great success. It’s also an important milestone that should encourage all of us not to lose hope and motivate us to continue doing everything possible to save the baiji, recover the finless porpoise and improve the Yangtze ecosystem step by step. Small positive actions that are good for the baiji are also good for the finless porpoise, and will ultimately help improve the freshwater resources of the Yangtze basin and the quality of 400 million human lives.
Some people say that the baiji is a symbol of missed opportunities. Nonsense! We say that the baiji is a powerful symbol of new opportunities, new ways of doing things, and new ways of working together to conserve nature for the benefit of humanity.
The Pilot Yangtze Freshwater Dolphin Expedition 06 is an excellent example of fruitful collaboration across national boundaries and cultures. A team of experts from five nations joined forces with our Chinese friends to ensure that future baiji and Yangtze conservation efforts start with the strongest foundations possible using the best possible building blocks of global expertise.
I would like to give special thanks to the following people and administrations for helping to make the Pilot Expedition such a resounding success:The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture for providing such an excellent working platform for organising the Expedition; Wang Ding for his never-ending motivational spirit; our project manager Leigh Barrett for her boundless energy and unlimited management skills; Xiangfeng Zhang, Wei Zhuo, Wang Kexiong, Zhao Xiu Jiang, Zhang Xin Qiao, Wang Xian Yan, Wang Xiao Qiang, Dong Shou Yue, the IHB Baiji Research Team and the KeKao crew members for all their hard work prior to and during the expedition.
Director Ma, Director Hu, the Yueyang Government Fisheries Management team and the Baiji Reserve’s staff for their exceptional hospitality during our nightly stopovers. Mr Hao and Mr Yu for making the Friendship trip a great success.
The Swiss government departments for their wonderful support re: Workshop Report and Daniel Jassem of the US embassy in Beijing for opening the doorway to greater collaboration with US partners.
Jay Barlow, Bob Pitman and Beat Mueller for giving up their precious time to share their valuable expertise with our Chinese friends; Sandra Windlin for her various rescue operations; the Friendship Group helping to inform a wider audience about this globally important freshwater conservation issue, and finally to Swatch and Victorinox for the fantastic watches, hats and penknives!
Thanks to the Pilot Expedition, we now have the know-how and methodology to successfully tackle the wide-range expedition this November. We look forward to the challenge!The event will provide a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to develop a much better understanding of the Yangtze River ecosystem and also a greater appreciation of each other’s cultures. As a team we are optimistic that we will find the last of our elusive baiji friends and obtain solid data for developing a successful recovery programme for Yangtze freshwater cetaceans.We have many tasks to prepare over the coming seven months, and we will keep you regularly informed with progress reports posted on this site.Best regards,
August Pfluger, CEO
Baiji.org FoundationÂ
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