Herbaria, gardens, organisations

The Asian Wetland Bureau is one of the largest international non-profit, non-government organizations active in wetland conservation and management in the Asia-Pacific region. Legally based in England, AWB has offices in Kuala Lumpur and Bogor. It was established in 1983 and now employs 55 staff on an annual budget of over US$ 1.5 million. The organization gradually evolved from a collection of loosely knit short-term migratory bird species conservation projects, to one of integrated longer term wetland programs operating to a large extent on core rather than project funding. The AWB is affiliated with the International Waterfowl and Wetlands Research Bureau (IWRB) and represent it in the Asia-Pacific region. In Indonesia, AWB-Indonesia has a standing agreement with the Indonesian Directorategeneral of Forest Protection and Nature Conservation (PHPA), to provide expert services, technical assistance and transfer of knowledge to PHPA and other government agencies. It provides short-term in-service training-courses to PHPA and other counterpart agencies in wetland assessment, monitoring and management techniques, and has developed a National Wetland Data Base. The growing library on Asia-Pacific wetland literature (c. 1800 titles) and a reprint collection (c. 2000 titles) provides rapid access to recent data on wetlands through a PC-based catalogue.