Paul Noyes

Wader Project Officer

Paul is responsible for developing and supporting stakeholder engagement and collaboration for wader monitoring in the UK.

Interests & Responsibilities

Breeding waders have declined drastically in the UK due to a combination of habitat loss, changes in land management, and predation. If efforts to conserve waders are to be successful, they must be underpinned by the action and support of grassroots local stakeholders and communities.

Paul works with other BTO colleagues to develop a national monitoring scheme for breeding Curlews and other wader species, in partnership with these grassroots communities.

A key component of this work is the development of the Wader Hub, which draws together guidance to help grassroots individuals and groups decide how best to monitor waders.

Paul is keen to develop breeding wader surveys and nest monitoring ‘protocols’ that anyone can follow. This will allow local individuals and groups to record key information about their wader project in a comparable way, and to communicate more effectively about their project and the waders they monitor to other groups and stakeholders.

Paul is also interested in using these protocols and systems to better evaluate the success of agri-environmental scheme payments, which are extremely important for wader conservation, and is developing novel methods to support farmers and gamekeepers to monitor waders and collect data to inform their own land management decisions.

Paul is a C-permit wader ringer.