Humans Rarely Heed Cries of Threatened Birds

DURBAN, South Africa, March 9, 2004 (ENS) - Hundreds of the world's threatened bird species are still in trouble three years after BirdLife International identified essential conservation measures needed to help them survive. Their status is the focus of a new report "State of the World's Birds" released Monday at a week-long gathering here in Durban of BirdLife partner organizations from around the world.

"State of the World's Birds" presents firm evidence that we are losing birds and other biodiversity at an alarming and ever-increasing rate," said Dr. Michael Rands, director of BirdLife International.

There is some progress to report. Reinforcing the conservationists' hope that timely action based on good science can reverse the slide towards extinction, the report finds that nearly a quarter of globally threatened birds - 280 species - have started to benefit from actions identified by BirdLife.

These strategies have been implemented with the help of national governments, communities, and nongovernmental organizations. In four percent of species, the benefit has already been judged "significant," BirdLife said.

For instance, the short-tailed albatross was thought to be extinct until its rediscovery on Tori-shima, off Japan, in the 1950s. Recent habitat management and implementation of seabird bycatch measures in the Pacific have helped numbers to increase to around 1,200 pairs.

Rands said, "Readers of the report will find that the BirdLife Partnership is directly helping to implement actions for 42 percent of globally threatened birds, but we need support from others, particularly national governments, both in terms of financial help and in establishing and maintaining protected areas."

Using the IUCN Red List categories and criteria, BirdLife has determined that 1,211 species - 12.4 percent of species, or one in eight bird species - are globally threatened with extinction.

An endangered little tern has just arrived at Australia's Nambucca River after a 6,000 km journey from Eastern Asia. (Photo courtesy Nambucca Web)

More than 350 delegates from over 100 countries are attending Empowering People for Change, the BirdLife International World Conservation Conference.

BirdLife partner organizations understand that local communities are playing an increasingly central role in the long term conservation of natural resources. Successfully protecting birds and biodiversity cannot be separated from improving people's lives.

"We aim to parallel the growth in birding and avitourism within South Africa with an increase in the perceived value of birds to rural communities," said Aldo Berruti, director of BirdLife South Africa.

The BirdLife South Africa Richards Bay Project of the Rio Tinto-Birdlife International Partnership has been given the go ahead to ensure the long term conservation of birds and habitats in Zululand.

Richards Bay is globally important bird area with many special species such as Woodwards batis, Eastern nicators and Livingstones turaco reaching the southern most extent of their ranges here. It is also a very important area for waterbirds and often sees huge congregations of waterfowl and is an excellent area for turning up rarities such as crab plover, says BirdLife South Africa.

A rare and colorful bird at Richards Bay, South Africa (Photo courtesy IUCN)

Birdlife Zululand along with BirdLife South Africa and Rio-Tinto PLC, the parent company of Richards Bay Minerals, has decided to take the approach of marketing and developing Richards Bay as a major birding destination, giving the presently unused bird habitats around Richards Bay some socio-economic value and a reason to protect them from further destructive development.

This project will add the much needed input that the Zululand Birding Route needs in order to develop the area into one of the world’s finest birding spots.

BirdLife South Africa also plans to run its Learning for Sustainability program in the Richards Bay region, providing environmental education to all sectors of the community.

Community involvement is essential to protecting threatened birds, and people are often helpful when they know what is going on. Overharvesting of eggs was a real threat to the Vanuatu megapode, a bird found only on the Pacific island of Vanuatu. BirdLife suggested talking to local people to make them aware of what was happening.

Dr. Mark O’Brien, a researcher from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, BirdLife International’s UK Partner, has taken the world’s first and only photographs of the globally threatened Vanuatu Megapode Megapodius layardi, which is found on only a few of the 108 islands of the Pacific nation of Vanuatu. (Photo by Mark O'Brien courtesy RSPB/BirdLife)

As a result, local chiefs have imposed a moratorium on egg collection for four months of the year in parts of Ambrym, and a complete five year ban in the southeast of the island until numbers of this threatened species recover.

Human activities and the fragmentation and destruction of bird habitat that accompany these activities are the greatest threat to birds, the new status report shows. Habitat destruction and degradation currently impact 1,045 globally threatened birds, 86 percent of the total.

Over-exploitation - mainly hunting for food and trapping for the cage bird trade - and the effects of alien invasive species, especially predators, each directly threaten over 300 species. These are currently the most serious threats to bird species,with 40 percent of globally threatened birds affected by two out of three of these threats.

A rapidly emerging threat is climate change, which BirdLife's report says will reduce, and force shifts in, the ranges of many species. Many will not be able to move fast enough, or in concert with other species. This will result in extinctions.

"Whether we lose a few species or huge numbers will depend critically on the degree of warming. We must act now to minimize this," the report warns.

The short-tailed albatross has benefited from planting of native vegetation at its principal nesting colony on Torishima, Japan. This helps to stabilize the soil and nest structures. (Photo by Yu Yat Tung courtesy BirdLife)

"Biodiversity conservation is an excellent investment, but one that we are still not making," the report says, estimating a $24 billion annual gap between what is spent and what is needed.

The world’s existing protected areas have an annual budgetary shortfall of around US$2.5 billion. Expanding the network to safeguard biodiversity adequately would cost another US$21.5 billion per year, BirdLife reports.

Current global funding is only US$7 billion per year, of which less than US$1 billion is spent in the developing world, which holds most of the world’s biodiversity.

The three main problems affecting resources for conservation worldwide. Not enough money is being spent, finance is not sustained, and it is often applied in the wrong way and in the wrong places.

The bottom line is clear. Humans must undertake "a fundamental shift in the way we look after our world—and this is a political challenge," the report says.

"More than any other wildlife," BirdLife concludes hopefully, "birds are a gateway to environmental understanding, and a focal point to empower people for change."

Read the report "State of the World's Birds" online at: http://www.birdlife.org/action/science/species/sowb/pdfs.html