The World Migratory Birds Initiative was launched in 2006 as a global initiative dedicated to celebrating migratory birds and promoting their protection worldwide and as an annual awareness campaign to highlight the importance of protecting migratory birds and their habitats. Individuals and organisations concerned with the protection of wildlife with all its components all over the world organize public events for this event such as bird festivals, educational programs and trips to observe birds during their migration. These events are being carried out in order to celebrate this occasion with a view to educating and raising the awareness of the public, especially children (the future generations) and introducing them to these migratory birds and their importance and role in the environmental balance. These events also aim to eliminate the idea, especially within hunters, that migratory birds are not important to the countries that they pass on their migration and that they are not contributing to the ecological balance of these passage countries. This idea has been promoted by some shooters in order to morally justify hunting these birds ignoring the role of these birds at resting sites on their passage that cover more than 90% of these countries (especially small countries with diverse ecosystems such as Syria) during winter or summer migration.
The Syrian Society for the Conservation of Wildlife has implemented and celebrated this event since its launch on many occasions with various celebrations or seminars at different locations, even during the recent years of the crisis
