ALUMNI NEWS

Photojournalist and longtime QLF friend Greig Cranna unveiled a new exhibit, Forty Years, Forty Moments, and his new BRIDGE Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The exhibit showcases one photograph from each year that best represents the evolution of Greig’s distinguished 40-year career. A number of these photographs were taken while on assignment with QLF.

Greig Cranna, in front of new BRIDGE Gallery, Cambridge, MA

In 1978, a QLF assignment sent Greig to the Quebec North Shore along the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Lured by the rugged coastline and the people in remote rural communities, Greig was inspired to document the impact of QLF’s Internships in Conservation across Eastern Canada. Thus began his long association with QLF. Greig has traveled extensively in the Canadian Maritimes, photographing seabird research, Atlantic salmon research, aquaculture, environmental issues, and ecotourism. In 1982 when he moved to Boston, Greig’s interests expanded to include education, agriculture and architecture.

Recommended reading: Compass, the QLF Annual Newsletter, 2015 edition – an article written by Greig, with accompanying photographs, on his experience with QLF

QLF President Beth Alling and President Emeritus Larry Morris had the opportunity to stop by BRIDGE Gallery to see Greig’s exhibit, including a number of photographs which were taken during his QLF assignments. 1995’s moment beautifully captured a Northern Gannet on Bonaventure Island in Québec while on QLF assignment. In 2003, Greig photographed Helen Hays on Great Gull Island, the largest nesting colony of Common and Roseate Terns in the Western Hemisphere. Helen is the Director of the Great Gull Island Project of the American Museum of Natural History. Later in 2007, Greig traveled to Punta Rasa, Argentina to follow Great Gull Island’s terns and researchers, and captured a photograph of the mist netting in early evening.

See Greig’s new exhibit, Forty Years, Forty Moments, in person at BRIDGE Gallery

Greig has participated in and photographed countless QLF programs, from Canada to Long Island Sound, Hungary to Argentina, and he has played an invaluable role in promoting the QLF mission for more four decades. To see the exhibit up close, you can visit BRIDGE Gallery at #5 Pemberton Street in Cambridge until December 15, or purchase the collection Forty Years, Forty Moments.

For more information, visit the gallery’s website or Greig’s photography website.

Courtesy: The New York Times

“A worldwide catastrophe is underway among an extraordinary group of birds — the marathon migrants we know as shorebirds. Numbers of some species are falling so quickly that many biologists fear an imminent planet-wide wave of extinctions.”

This article from The New York Times is an incredibly informative read on the crisis facing shorebirds, and highlights many of the reasons for QLF’s conservation work in Eastern Canada, and the development of a new program to promote transboundary conservation along the world’s great flyways. As John W. Fitzpatrick and Nathan R. Senner write, “The global collapse of migratory shorebird populations is much more than a calamity facing a group of exquisitely evolved birds. It also tells us that our global network of aquatic systems is fraying.”

You can learn more about shorebird conservation in this Fall 2017 article by Dr. Kathleen Blanchard, Senior Consultant in Biodiversity Conservation at QLF. Kath will gather a new group of interns in eastern Canada this summer to further this essential conservation work and develop the next generation of environmental leaders.

And stay tuned for a Spring 2019 program where QLF will gather conservationists from all the world’s great flyways to facilitate an exchange of conservation innovation and effective techniques on the stewardship of migratory birds.

QLF’s Senior Vice President Brent Mitchell recently returned from Brazil, where he gave the closing keynote to the national congress of RPPN (Private Natural Heritage Reserves). Brent also traveled to the Pantanal and was hosted at Brazil’s largest privately protected area.

Click here or on the report below to read more details about his trip, see photos of area wildlife, and get a briefing on the latest developments of the upcoming IUCN Best Practice Guidelines on Privately Protected Areas. 

During QLF’s 2016 Congress in Barcelona, QLF director and COO / CFO of Manomet Constance de Brun sat down with Amir Balaban, QLF alum and cofounder of the Jerusalem Bird Observatory (JBO), and an idea for a partnership began to form. Less than a year later, the two organizations began an exchange to explore the future and impact of bird observatories across borders, specifically how they can be catalysts for conservation by being centers for experiential science education.

Photo Credit: Constance de Brun

The first phase of the exchange was hosted by JBO in Israel last September. This Story Map beautifully demonstrates the important ideas and work that came out of this exchange, including a front row seat to bird banding and the nearby Rift Valley Flyway that hosts hundreds of millions of migrating birds each fall and spring. In October, Manomet hosted JBO’s experts in New England to complete the exchange. They stopped by a Sandwich, MA middle school, which is participating in Manomet’s Climate Lab project. Both organizations are dedicated to strengthening their education programs, and this partnership is an important next step in doing so.

Photo Credit: Constance de Brun

150 participants at the 2^nd International Bird Observatory Conference listened as Manomet and JBO presented as partners on the progress made as a result of their Exchange, and how collaborating had expanded the reach of their programs. As this blog post from Manomet recapping the Conference elegantly states, “Birds know no borders, and at the IBOC there were no barriers between bird observatories, either.”

We are thrilled at the conservation progress made by these two amazing organizations, and highly recommend taking a further look at the resources we linked to above. We can’t wait to see what comes next from this partnership!