HomeDucks Unlimited Link Spurs California Trade Office in Calgary 
Calgary AB, Oct. 13 – The state of California is preparing to open an international trade office in Calgary, Alta.
The office is the direct result of efforts by California conservationist and state Senator Mike Thompson, who included the office funding in the California budget and guided the proposal through the legislative process. He recently saw his dream signed into law by Gov. Pete Wilson.
The trade office will seek international economic exchanges far beyond the conservation efforts of the people of Alberta and California, who have labored for decades to insure waterfowl habitat is conserved, enhanced and remains forever available to the birds.
Senator Thompson noted the office "will be able to expand our mutual interests beyond waterfowl habitat to agricultural exchange, and the areas of energy, education, forestry and industry. Waterfowl are an internationally shared natural resource, and their migrations along the Pacific Flyway are changing the way California does business.''
But it is the genesis of the exchange - waterfowl migrations and conservation - that makes the Calgary office unique. California has contributed more than $4.5 million (US) from a state duck stamp bill to the international wetland conservation organization Ducks Unlimited, helping to fund its work on critical habitat.
The result of that work has been the enhancement of more than 230,000 acres of nesting habitat, and, according to Senator Thompson, "the international scientific and conservation efforts have now expanded our horizons to include other areas of international cooperation.''
Calgary shares with California a reputation as a tourist mecca. The Canadian Rockies and Calgary Stampede are as well known as the Sierra Nevada and Disneyland. Commerce in and around Calgary has made the Calgary International Airport the third busiest in Canada. Senator Thompson noted this, combined with California's status as one of the world's largest economies, makes the trade office a natural extension of the conservation efforts.
Ducks Unlimited works throughout North America, wherever migratory waterfowl travel, in Canada, the United States and Mexico.
Senator Thompson has been one of the most supportive members of the California legislature in the field of conservation.
