<div class="bg_partners_and_news"></div>
Saudi Arabia - Saudi Wildlife Authority (SWA)
BirdLife Affiliate
Recent Achievements
- Continued with an active Houbara Bustard release programme. For the fifth year running, released birds bred successfully
- Monitored the breeding population of Lappet-faced Vultures in the Mahazat as-Sayd Protected Area. Vulture chicks were ringed and a study of the Hoopoe Lark in the area was carried out
- Continued ornithological studies on lark phylogeny, monitoring of Eurasian Griffons, bird migration, guineafowl, the Arabian Bustard, and captive breeding and releasing of Ostriches
Did you know?
- More than 2,000 local groups actively monitor and conserve "their" Important Bird Areas. They are BirdLife's eyes and ears on the ground, watchdogs of the state of IBAs, and passionate campaigners for their protection.
- BirdLife recognised early on that conservation has to enhance human well-being tangibly in order to be fully embraced by local people, and BirdLife Partners are very well positioned to engage with local communities in their countries
- BirdLife-inspired mitigation measures have been shown to reduce long-lining seabird bycatch by an average of 80%
- Over 600 bird species have already been impacted by climate change
- BirdLife demonstrated the intimate link between biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction through community-centred projects at Important Bird Areas
- Due to BirdLife capacity building, four of the six BirdLife Partners in the tropical Pacific now have the technical knowledge, experience and support networks to undertake restoration of important islands
- 800,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions are to be avoided through forest protection in Paraguay
- In 1968, BirdLife purchased an entire island in Seychelles to save the Critically Endangered Seychelles Warbler and formed a brand new conservation NGO there
- BirdLife demonstrated the intimate link between biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction through community-centred projects at Important Bird Areas
- Since biodiversity is not evenly distributed around the globe, the IBA approach can represent a cost-effective and efficient approach to conservation, because a relatively small network can support disproportionately large numbers of species
- Shared responsibilities/Sharing is caring: 99% of countries and territories worldwide support at least one globally threatened bird species
- There is 1 member of BirdLife staff for every 1.4 species of bird; or 5.6 members of staff for every bird species threatened with extinction
- National IBA books have been published in local languages in more than 40 countries, and made available to conservationists, politicians and concerned local people
- BirdLife coordinated the Migratory Birds Committee, which fostered cooperation between countries, enabling affluent European countries where the birds breed to provide funding and expertise to poorer African countries with important passage and wintering
- 70,000 hectares of Africa’s most threatened forests have been protected by BirdLife (Gola Rainforest National Park Sierra Leone)
- Bar-tailed Godwit travel 11,000km across the Pacific Ocean- the longest non-stop journey ever recorded for a bird
- 129 Important Bird Area publications have been produced so far, covering all or part of 83 countries
- BirdLife inspired mitigation measures have been shown to reduce long-lining seabird bycatch by an average of 80%
- In a Norwegian longline fishing trial, the use of a bird-scaring line dropped bird bycatch to zero, while fish catch increased by 30%
- Asian vulture populations declined by 95% in less than a decade - BirdLife work has now halted this decline
- Locally, people take pride in their wildlife, especially if it is unique, and connections with nature are an important part of culture and identity
- BirdLife Partners each year directly involve over 4 million children in conservation education activities
- In some cases, the simple inexpensive measures introduced to fisheries to dramatically reduce seabird kills, actually increase fish catches for the fishermen
- BirdLife's first ever World Bird Festival (2001) attracted over 300,000 people to more than 1,200 events in 88 countries
- BirdLife has facilitated legally binding protection for more than 2,000 Important Bird Areas. Overall, 40% of all global 11,000 IBAs enjoy some degree of protection
- So far, Important Bird Areas have been identified in 200 countries
- 20% of the world's birds occur in less than 1% of the world's land area
- 1,200 volunteers and a network of volunteer coordinators invested 30,000 hours in fieldwork for SEO/BirdLife’s Atlas of Wintering Birds in Spain
- Shared responsibilities/Sharing is caring: 99% of countries and territories worldwide support at least one globally threatened bird species
- “It is fair to say that without the BirdLife IBA project tens of thousands of people in the Caribbean would not have been exposed to bird and site conservation issues”
- 16 bird species were rescued from the brink of extinction in the last decade because of conservation action
- More than 2,000 local groups actively monitor and conserve "their" Important Bird Areas. They are BirdLife's eyes and ears on the ground, watchdogs of the state of IBAs, and passionate campaigners for their protection.
- The IBA network in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda captures nearly all (90-97%) of the region's threatened or endemic mammals, snakes and amphibians
- No boundaries: from pole to pole, a staggering eighty thousand kilometres round trip is the migration that Arctic Terns make every year
- 3/4 of threatened bird species on oceanic islands are affected by invasive species
- 136 bird species have been classified as extinct since 1500
- BirdLife coordinated the Migratory Birds Committee, which fostered cooperation between countries, enabling affluent European countries where the birds breed to provide funding and expertise to poorer African countries with important passage and wintering
- Agricultural expansion has already impacted 87% of globally threatened bird species
- Between 1978 and 1988, BirdLife carried out more than 140 projects in Europe and Africa, building networks and supporting existing conservation bodies, and founding NGOs in countries where there had been no previous organisations devoted to the study and
- BirdLife estimates that fishing gear killed two million seabirds between 2000 and 2010 in Europe alone
- “It is fair to say that without the BirdLife IBA project tens of thousands of people in the Caribbean would not have been exposed to bird and site conservation issues”
- The BirdLife Partnership owns or manages more than one million hectares of nature reserves in 25 countries (that’s equivalent to a third of the size of Belgium)
- The 117 civil society organisations forming the BirdLife Partnership have a wealth of knowledge and technical skills amounting to a total of 6,443 years of experience
- Access to nature and green spaces improves people’s physical and mental health, makes communities more attractive, and often contributes to local regeneration
- 10,985 BirdLife Important Bird Areas (IBAs) have been created in over 200 countries and territories, with over 2000 Local Conservation Groups protecting “their” IBAs
- BirdLife is able to assert that it has never knowingly turned its back while a bird species became extinct
- 75% of all bird species are found in forests, chiefly in the tropics
- 10,985 BirdLife Important Bird Areas (IBAs) have been created in over 200 countries and territories, with over 2000 Local Conservation Groups protecting “their” IBAs
- 75% of all bird species are found in forests, chiefly in the tropics
- Due to BirdLife capacity building, four of the six BirdLife Partners in the tropical Pacific now have the technical knowledge, experience and support networks to undertake restoration of important islands
- BirdLife has been working in tropical forest conservation in over 50 countries for decades
- “It is fair to say that without the BirdLife IBA project tens of thousands of people in the Caribbean would not have been exposed to bird and site conservation issues”
- BirdLife is calling for the importance of healthy ecosystems to be written into national, regional and international climate change and development policy
- 40% of the earth’s surface is comprised of ocean that no single nation has control over
- The BirdLife Partnership’s programmes and projects rely on a global budget of over US$500 million
- 7 million hectares of tropical forest are destroyed each year (the size of Ireland)
- The BirdLife Partnership owns or manages more than one million hectares of nature reserves in 25 countries
- When complete, the global network of Important Bird Areas is likely to comprise around 15,000 IBAs- covering 7% of the world's land surface (equivalent to the size of Europe!)
- 800,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions are to be avoided through forest protection in Paraguay
- BirdLife is calling for the importance of healthy ecosystems to be written into national, regional and international climate change and development policy
- 66 globally threatened species are benefiting directly from our Preventing Extinctions Programme
- 75% of all bird species are found in forests, chiefly in the tropics
- BirdLife’s global education initiative “Save the birds, save the trees, save the earth” involved 2,000 schools and 15,000 children from 29 countries
- BirdLife Partners each year directly involve over 4 million children in conservation education activities
