Saving Asia's Threatened Birds

Saving Asia's Threatened Birds Zoom In

Saving Asia’s Threatened Birds: a Guide for Government and Civil Society sets out the priorities for the conservation of birds and habitats in the region bounded by Russia, Indonesia, Pakistan and Japan. It will be freely distributed to decision-makers in all the countries and territories of Asia.

The new guide is based on BirdLife’s monumental 3,000 page Red Data Book, Threatened Birds of Asia (2001) which included proposals, programmes and policies for the conservation of individual species. Saving Asia’s Threatened Birds contains a synthesis of these recommendations, together with new proposals, made more accessible for a wider audience. To provide a more efficient focus for conservation, the new book moves the emphasis from individual species to the key habitats on which multiple species depend.

Threatened Birds of Asia

2,700 bird species are found in the Asia region, which extends from the Arctic to the tropics. Some are widespread, others confined to single islands. A quarter of Asian Bird species are of conservation concern, and one in eight is globally threatened.

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Action for Asia’s Key Bird Habitats

Most threatened species in Asia depend for their survival on a particular type of forest, grassland or wetland. Saving Asia’s Threatened Birds has used the analysis from Threatened Birds of Asia to define the nine key Forest regions, three Grassland regions and 20 Wetland regions which support the majority of Asia’s threatened birds.

These regions overlap with the priority areas identified by other international conservation organisations, including Conservation International’s Hotspots and WWF’s Global 200 Ecoregions, as well as BirdLife International’s own Endemic Bird Areas (EBAs).

The bulk of the book -200 out of 246 pages- presents detailed accounts of each of the 32 key habitats, plus a section on the most important habitats for seabirds. Each account describes the current status of habitats and threatened species, discusses the main threats, and offers recommendations for conservation action.