Important Bird Area Indices
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BirdLife has identified a network of sites, Important Bird Areas (IBAs), in Africa that are crucial to the survival of birds like the globally threatened Wattled Crane Grus carunculatus.
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IBA indices work at the national, regional and global levels. They are essential supplementary indicators for the 2010 target.
Important Bird Areas (IBAs) form a global network of sites crucial for maintaining species' overall ranges and populations. IBAs are a major part of the larger network of key biodiversity areas – the most important sites for biodiversity conservation worldwide. BirdLife is developing indices to show trends in measures of state, pressure and response at IBAs around the world. This will allow coverage and effectiveness of Protected Areas to be assessed against the priority set of target sites.
Refining protected area coverage indicators for the 2010 target
- The number and size of protected areas (PAs) reflect measures taken to safeguard biodiversity. However, these simple indicators do not tell us how effective these measures are. For this, we need to know whether PAs are in the right places, and what their ecological condition is.
- Important Bird Area (IBA) indices are being developed to help overcome this limitation. These indices show the effectiveness of PAs in protecting globally important biodiversity.
- IBAs are sites of international significance for the conservation of the world’s birds. They are identified using rigorous, standardized criteria based upon the presence of bird populations at sites. To date more than 7,500 IBAs have been identified worldwide.
- IBAs are an integral part of the key biodiversity area approach to site-based conservation. Since IBAs capture the bulk of diversity in many taxonomic groups, indices based on IBAs provide a good indicator of trends in the overall coverage of biodiversity by PAs.
- A comparison of the IBA and PA networks in Africa shows that 20% of the region’s 225 globally threatened bird species occur only at unprotected sites. The continent’s PA network fails to cover 43% of IBAs (529 sites).
- Monitoring of IBAs can show trends in condition, threats and conservation responses. A pilot study of the Kenya IBA network demonstrates how this approach generates indicators of progress towards the 2010 target at the national level.
National example: Monitoring Important Bird Areas in Kenya
- Monitoring IBAs shows trends in condition (state), threats (pressure) and conservation action (response). Simple quantitative measures for each site are combined to provide assessments of trends across IBA networks
- In Kenya, average site condition and threats deteriorated from 1990-2003. In response however, conservation action increased substantially. Further monitoring will show if this is effective in addressing threats and improving site condition
Summary of trends of Kenya's IBAs 1999-2003 (n=49)
Tracking the increase in protected area coverage over time
BirdLife and UNEP-WCMC are working to show how the numbers of IBAs benefiting from legal safeguard have increased over time. This will demonstrate whether recent expansions of PA networks have been effective in capturing critical biodiversity, and refine understanding of the remaining gaps.