Azerbaijan is located along the Eurasian-African Migratory Bird Flyway connecting Central Asia to the Middle East and Africa and used by many threatened birds; among them the White headed Duck (Oxuyra leucocephala).Hajigabul Lake is one of the largest and most important wetlands in the Kura-Araz lowlands in Azerbaijan and is of key importance as wintering site for 15,000 to 25,000 waterbirds every year. And also it has importance for breeding waterbirds such as Marbled Teal, Ferruginous Duck and ets. Besides it regularly support during migration period (middle February- middle April and October-November) the same number of migratory waterbirds.

The lake lie on the migration way of waterbirds from Caspian Sea coast to inland wetlands (lakes Aggol, Sarisu et c.). The conservation of the lake is therefore an important step in the conservation of the network of sites important for the White-headed Duck as the Lake Hajigabul regularly hosts internationally important numbers (up to 1,000 i.e. >10% of the global population) of this species during migration and over winter.

The Project aims to understand the root causes of the current threats and their impact on the migratory waterfowl and improve conservation management of Lake Hajigabul based on a stakeholder-involvement approach. Also we want to increase public awareness and understanding of the site peculiarity by including key local stakeholders into project implementation and informing broader public with press work and production and dissemination of a site information poster. The multi-stakeholder group created with in the frame of project will be main and very important support for the conservation of Lake and will help to the national recognition of Lake.