BirdLife News Round-up: March 2008

How does BirdLife do it? Preventing extinctions. Conserving habitats. Protecting global biodiversity. Ensuring sustainable use of natural resources. And many bird species just can’t sit still – migrating across countless borders each year. One word seems to encapsulate how we succeed – partnerships.

News in March reminded us that working together is our greatest strength. The BirdLife Preventing Extinctions Programme continues to build momentum - announcing a new Species Champion/Guardian alliance to help save the Critically Endangered Azores Bullfinch (Europe's rarest finch finds favour). At the same time, another BirdLife Partnership – the Albatross Task Force – doubled the number of countries in which it operates (ATF ‘spreads its wings’ to cover more countries).

In fact, we couldn’t keep seabirds out of the news. After a gap of 79 years, the confirmed rediscovery of Beck’s Petrel hit more than 250 websites and newspapers worldwide (Beck’s Petrel flies back from extinction). From opposite sides of the globe, we also reported on a pair of seabird translocation programmes. Bermuda Petrel (Bermuda Petrel returns to Nonsuch Island (Bermuda) after 400 years) and Short-tailed Albatross (Short-tailed Albatross chicks moved out of the shadow of the volcano) chicks have been successfully moved from their present vulnerable breeding sites, to more secure, carefully-selected, locations.

The selection of IBAs is proving to be an effective way of conserving habitats and joining up our efforts across bird flyways. We ran three stories of BirdLife Partners meeting up to discuss their projects, share experiences and ideas, and to agree future plans (Successful meeting reviews progress in the monitoring of Important Bird Areas and protected areas in Africa; Kazakhstan study helps to identify wealth of new IBAs; International action to save the Red-breasted Goose).

On the other side of the Atlantic, BirdLife’s ‘Neotropical Migrants at IBAs’ initiative illustrated how Partners are using joined-up conservation along flyways. The crucial work is linking IBAs between North and South America - helping to protect global biodiversity. (Joining up conservation - from Canada’s boreal forest to South America). This story also drew our attention towards the ‘Save Our Boreal Birds’ campaign which is urging people to sign an online petition to protect the mighty forest. Please sign up today.

At a national scale, but no less impressive, MME (BirdLife in Hungary) announced that by working alongside electric companies it had secured an agreement to make power lines more ‘bird-friendly’ by 2020 (Agreement secures safer power lines for Hungary’s Birds). Research by MME suggests that around 30,000 Hungarian birds are electrocuted each year.

Conservation challenges often require BirdLife Partners to work with other organisations with complementary skills. This is especially key when ensuring sustainable use of natural resources as highlighted by a new BirdLife report ‘Building Partnerships: Working together for conservation and development’. The publication looks at the many different alliances which have enabled BirdLife Partners around the world to achieve their goals (New guide to successful partnerships for conservation and development).

A busy month for news affirmed that partnerships are indeed what BirdLife International does best. Please keep your stories coming in, and get in touch if you have any queries. Together we stand, divided we fail…

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