Darwin project helps biodiversity-rich countries meet CBD obligations

The UK Government is helping six of the world’s most biodiversity-rich countries meet their obligations under the Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD).

An ambitious project will strengthen the scientific capacity of national conservation NGOs, enabling them to carry out the data gathering and analysis for effective implementation of the Convention.

BirdLife partners from the following countries will be taking part: Bolivia, Botswana, Lebanon, Nepal, Palau and Russia. All are rich in biodiversity and hold important populations of threatened species.

"The project has been designed with impact and legacy very much in mind," said Alison Stattersfield, BirdLife’s Head of Science, who is spearheading the project.

"We have selected partners with great potential to develop their scientific capacity and thereby improve conservation outcomes. We will develop a training programme and a set of activities which will become embedded into on-going programmes once the Darwin funding comes to an end."

"Birds are excellent indicators of biodiversity and the state of the environment because they are conspicuous, relatively easy to identify, found almost everywhere, and we have an understanding of their biology and life-histories from which we can infer changes. Furthermore, variations in bird populations and/or species composition provide useful indications of environmental changes."

As the project progresses, host country co-ordinators will begin to act as regional ‘hubs’ for training staff of other national BirdLife Partners.

Key project activities will be the identification of scientific work needed to support each country’s implementation of the CBD and appropriate training requirements to undertake it; the establishment of demonstration projects to develop the national datasets needed for scientific analyses; cross-regional workshops to pass on the lessons learned to other BirdLife partners; websites making project outcomes widely available (the results will be widely disseminated through the CBD’s Clearing House Mechanism, of which BirdLife is an International Thematic Focal Point); and an “Analysis Guide” that will ensure future scientific analyses can be carried out under the same parameters and are therefore comparable.

According to Kabelo Senyatso, who leads the project in Botswana, "BirdLife Botswana’s contribution will centre on developing simple monitoring systems for Botswana’s birds—with a focus on threatened species such as Wattled Crane Mogolori and Kori Bustard Kgori, and promoting them as indicators of the general trends in biodiversity levels."

In Russia, the Russian Bird Conservation Union (RBCU) will target the growing number of birdwatchers in the country, who can collect valuable data on bird populations and form the basis for growth of the organisation.

In the Pacific nation of Palau, the Palau Conservation Society (PCS) will develop an inventory of Important Bird Areas (IBAs) and compile an assessment of the status of Palau’s birds. "The project will help us gain and share important information, while also strengthening our scientific capacity," said Tiare Holm, PCS’s Executive Director.

Bird Conservation Nepal’s (BCN) contribution will centre on Phulchoki and Jagadishpur—both IBAs—where the organisation works with local communities to safeguard birds and biodiversity by providing alternative income generating activities. "The project is extremely valuable and most timely for BCN," said Dr Hem Sagar Baral, Director of BCN.

Asociacion Armonia, the BirdLife partner in Bolivia, "will be aiming to enhance the effectiveness of conservation programmes for threatened birds in the Americas," according to Bennett Hennessey, the organisation’s Executive Director. "Education underpins conservation efforts, so we will be publishing local language information on Bolivia’s threatened species."

In Lebanon, the Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon (SPNL) will focus on the identification and conservation of IBAs, in partnership with A Rocha Lebanon and the MAVA foundation. "The project will help build SPNL’s scientific capacity and ability to transform its research data into scientific papers and improving policy processes," said Assad Serhal, SPNL’s Director-General.