Birds make us aware of the vital choices that we face

Chris Gommersall Membership of bird conservation organisations is growing worldwide Zoom In

We need a fundamental shift in the way we look after our world – and this is a political challenge. More than any other wildlife, birds are a gateway to environmental understanding, and a focal point to empower people for change.

Biodiversity conservation requires social and political changes

The state of the world’s birds is deteriorating. This signifies deeper problems in our environment and in the way we look after our world. There is much we can do right away to save birds and other biodiversity, but lasting solutions require lasting changes – we need fundamental rebuilding, not just painting over the cracks. The major challenges are not scientific, but social and political. Until enough people are aware of the issues and can directly influence their elected leaders, progress towards a sustainable world will remain slow. What is clear is that the choices we make will have a real impact on the diversity of life with which we share the Earth, and which forms our own life-support system (see box 1).

Birds provide a focus for positive change

Birds are an excellent gateway to understanding the environment. Appreciating birds and their conservation problems leads to a deeper understanding of our relationship with the Earth – and why humanity needs to change its values and behaviour. Important Bird Area Site Support Groups, building from a focus on birds, grow local pride in special wildlife. They help to develop democratic structures, empowering individuals and communities to take control and ensure wise use of their own resources. The millions of members of BirdLife Partners around the world are a sign of growing public awareness and activism, the beginning of real societal changes. It is encouraging that bird- and nature-focused membership organisations are going from strength to strength in developing, as well as developed, countries (box 2).

But we do not have much time. Our options are narrowing fast, giving us perhaps just a decade or two to prevent our planet being irretrievably impoverished. This report’s companion publications, Working together for birds and people and A strategy for birds and people, describe in more detail what the BirdLife Partnership is doing and planning to bring about real, positive change. Birds, seemingly among the most fragile of animals, may yet help form the foundation for building a better world.

Boxes: case studies and scientific analyses

Download SOWB pp.72–73 (PDF, 351 KB) containing the following:

1. Security or sustainability first? The fate of EBAs depends on the choices we make
a) Predicted expansion of agricultural land to 2050 under two scenarios
b) Differences in the future expansion of agricultural land under four global development scenarios are much greater within EBAs than for the world as a whole

2. Membership of bird conservation organisations is growing world-wide
a) The membership of LPO (BirdLife in France) has grown 10-fold in the last 20 years
b) Recent growth in membership of NatureUganda (BirdLife in Uganda)