Andy and Gill Swash; www.worldwildlifeimages.com Lear's Macaw: a great example of a conservation success story Zoom In

Conservation works

03-06-2009

BirdLife News Round-up: May 2009

Being a Partnership of more than 100 organisations working together, BirdLife is at the forefront of conservation – for birds, for biodiversity, and for people. Reflecting on our news from last month really illustrates the depth and breadth of our combined achievements.

Saving birds from illegal hunting is a major challenge, and something which our Partnership is tackling with great success – especially in Cyprus, Malta and Italy. We were delighted to hear that following a successful campaign led by BirdLife Cyprus (BirdLife Partner); the Cypriot Government has decided to stop the shooting of birds during the month of May on the island (Will Cyprus spring shooting be banned forever?).

Soaring migratory birds are particularly susceptible to illegal hunting - a few localised threats can have impacts on large populations of birds. In response, we’ve launched a major new BirdLife project in May – the UNDP-GEF / BirdLife Migratory Soaring Birds project. This will increase our efforts to conserve migratory soaring birds in one of world’s most important migration routes – the African Rift Valley and Red Sea Flyways (Soaring high: BirdLife launches new migratory bird project).

The natural rate of bird extinction is about one bird per century. Sadly, in the last 30 years alone, 21 bird species have become extinct. The BirdLife Preventing Extinctions Programme is striving to prevent more species from being lost. And our task got a little harder last month as we released our annual Red List update - on behalf of the IUCN - which shows that the number of Critically Endangered species increased by two (BirdLife International announces more Critically Endangered birds than ever before).

However, underlying the sobering statistics which shows that 1,227 bird species (12%) are now classified as Globally Threatened, we again saw clear examples that when conservation action is put in place, species can be saved. For example, efforts to conserve a spectacular blue parrot - Lear's Macaw Anodorhynchus leari – have increased it’s global population by four-fold, and resulted in it being downlisted from Critically Endangered to Endangered.

Introduced species - such as rats and cats - are one of the greatest drivers of biodiversity loss, and have been implicated in almost half of all bird extinctions in the past 500 years (The aliens have landed). They are also a major threat to seabirds – a group which is more threatened than any other group of birds. In response to these threats, our BirdLife Global Seabird Programme is involved in a range of projects which are successfully removing unwanted pests from islands around the world.

Again the message is clear – conservation works. In the Pacific we’re currently working with local communities and organisations – such as the Palau Conservation Society (BirdLife in Palau) - to remove introduced species from a number of islands, and have already had successes in the last year to celebrate (Fijian island beats the rat-race). In May, we heard how the efforts of a team of people to remove rats and translocate Bermuda Petrel Pterodroma cahow to Nonsuch Island had resulted in the first chick being born there for almost 400 years (Successful translocation sees first petrel chick).

Finally, we can’t look back to May and not feel delighted by the results of 20 years hard work by BirdLife, our Partners and others to save one of the world’s most biodiversity-rich ecosystems - the Upper Guinea Area of West Africa. The establishment of a new Trans-boundary Peace Park unites the Gola Forest Reserve in Sierra Leone and the Lofa and Foya Forest Reserves in Liberia has created a giant reserve around 255,000 ha in size (Trans-boundary park will be a symbol of peace and stability). A massive achievement by several conservation organisations in the BirdLife Partnership, our two national BirdLife Partners (Conservation Society of Sierra Leone and Society for the Conservation of Nature in Liberia), the RSPB (BirdLife in the UK), Vogelbescherming (BirdLife in The Netherlands).

We know that a team is greater than the sum of its parts. Working together is what BirdLife does best, and taking the opportunity each month to reflect on the challenges we face, and the achievements we’ve made, really shows the power of partnership. I can’t wait to see what June will bring us…