Biodiversity is the total variety of life on this planet. Much of this variety has evolved in or become confined to small areas of the world's land surface known as “centres of endemism”. The unique biodiversity concentrated in these small areas is particularly vulnerable to the destructive effects of man.

BirdLife has mapped every bird species with a restricted range of less than 50,000 km², using many thousands of geo-referenced locality records. The areas where these ranges overlap define avian centres of endemism that are termed Endemic Bird Areas (EBAs) by BirdLife International. Many other animals and plants have evolved into unique species in these same areas of endemism. EBAs are also, therefore, excellent indicators of general biodiversity.

The great majority of the world's 218 EBAs occur in tropical countries. No fewer than 2,500 bird species, 26% of all bird species on earth, are restricted to these areas, which cover only 5% of the world's land surface. And because this pattern in the birds is reflected in other life-forms, EBAs represent priority areas for global biodiversity conservation.

EBA Account example
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For EBAs, data are maintained on:

characteristics
location (country list)
map
area and altitudinal range
key habitats
main threats
restricted-range species
images
text accounts across a number of themes
references

Much of this information is available through the Data Zone. Information is presented as an EBA Account (see annotated example above).

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