Editorial: News from the BirdLife Partnership, October 2007

01-11-2007

Welcome to this month’s BirdLife Editorial: an opportunity for us to summarise events and stories coming from BirdLife International - the world’s largest alliance of conservation organisations.

At BirdLife we hear about and deal with extinction probably more than is healthy for us. However, the sheer enormity of what this word actually means was recently brought home by the news that one of the world’s most unique birds was teetering on the brink of oblivion (Unique spoon-billed bird facing extinction, 12 October). Action needs to be taken now as once gone there can be no Lazarus-like comeback.

It doesn’t take much for a species to be pushed towards the edge. One fateful decision can put even a numerous species at risk, exemplified by the Tanzanian Government and the Indian company Tata Chemicals' proposal to build a large-scale soda ash plant on Lake Natron (Africa’s leading conservationists meet as chemical plant threatens three-quarters of world’s Lesser Flamingo, 16 October; BirdLife’s urgent call to Think Pink, 26 October).

Birds not only suffer indirectly from our decisions but also feel the direct impact made by individuals engaging in what they mistakenly believe is “sport”. These acts occur on varying scales, from isolated and misguided occurrences (Conservationists appalled at Red-footed Falcon massacre, 8 October) to large-scale practice accepted as cultural norm (BirdLife Cyprus launches education campaign to tackle bird-trapping, 5 October).

In Europe, at least, there are now laws to prevent the worst of these acts but upholding this legislation is often an entirely different matter and requires constant lobbying from conservation groups (EU gives Malta last warning on spring hunting, 17 October).

Governments can and must be held to account for not acting on and upholding international law (Greece guilty of infringing European conservation law, 25 October) but given the right amount of pressure, persuasion and coercion they have been shown to do the right thing (BirdLife Partners applaud Uganda’s decision to drop Mabira Forest give-away, 29 October).

Protecting migratory species presents a special conundrum, where states must collaborate (States “must keep up momentum” to save threatened migratory birds of prey, 25 October). For most issues this usually proves problematic, but there have been many examples where environmental and conservation issues have provided the blueprint for cooperation between nations, thus paving the way for more controversial problems to be tackled.

Mahmoud Sheish Abdallah

Satellite-tagged Sociable Lapwings were tracked to south-eastern Turkey where researchers found the largest flock seen for 100 years.
Zoom In

"Mankind is an intrinsic part of the natural world and this is a deep and inescapable truth"

However, looking back over a month’s worth of news, what becomes most apparent is that even in these days of satellites and mobile communications there is still so much we don’t know. New species continue to be discovered (New species of antwren for Brazil, 8 October) and the lives of some of the rarest species continue to be elucidated using new technology, often giving pause for hope (Largest flock for 100 years: Sociable Lapwing lives up to its name, 19 October). At the other extreme, delving into history sometimes sheds light on species for which we only have scant information (Rediscovered amateur notebooks give historical insight into 'lost bird', 5 October), leaving open the possibility that these birds may hang on despite mounting odds.

New technology also allows us to carry out more comprehensive and wide-ranging restoration work to habitats (Fijian seabird isles to be “de-ratted”, 25 October), helping to right some of our historical wrongs.

In our modern world of information and celebrity it is nice to see the famous ‘doing their bit’ for conservation (Schwarzenegger gets the lead out, 16 October), but 24-hour news and cell phones have only been with us for the briefest blip of human history. With a growing awareness of environmental issues in response to the threat of climate change, much has been said about man’s relationship with the natural world. This, however, misses the point. Mankind is an intrinsic part of the natural world and this is a deep and inescapable truth (Birds and people – consulting the Partnership, 2 October).

As BirdLife’s Director of Science, Leon Bennun recently stated “any such extinction diminishes us, and narrows our world” and that’s especially true for a small bird with a spoon for a bill.

Martin Fowlie

Be the first to see this news, sign up to our BirdLife News Alerts. Already a subscriber? ...then tell a friend!