Climate Canaries

03-12-2009

BirdLife News Round-up: November 2009

What do 21% of mammals, 30% of amphibians, 12% of birds, and 28% of reptiles, 37% of freshwater fishes, 70% of plants, 35% of invertebrates have in common?

They are all Globally Threatened with extinction according to the latest update of the IUCN Red List – of which BirdLife is the IUCN authority on birds - which showed that 17,291 species may simply disappear in the future (Extinction crisis continues apace).

A major threat to seabirds is commercial longline and trawl fisheries, and hopes were high at the beginning of last month that the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas would agree to use mitigation measures to help stop seabirds from dying needlessly on a massive scale (Making Atlantic and Mediterranean fisheries seabird friendly). Sadly, they failed to pass the proposals; leaving at least 37 seabird species at risk from these fisheries (ICCAT leaves albatross conservation dead in the water).

Last month BirdLife also urged the European Commission to produce an ambitious and robust plan to reduce the incidental catch of around 200,000 seabirds killed each year in European Union fisheries (Stopping seabird deaths in European fisheries), and announced that the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels now covers all 22 albatross species (North Pacific Albatrosses added to ACAP).

We also heard how BirdLife’s regional office for West Africa, in collaboration with the Ghana Wildlife Society (BirdLife Partner), organised a four-day workshop on climate change mitigation and forest biodiversity conservation for Protected Area managers from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana (Climate change and forests workshop in West Africa).

Climate change wasn’t the only issue being tackled by the Africa Partnership in November. We reported how a widely available poison is being used to kill thousands of birds illegally every month in an area of Kenya, and by game poachers in Botswana to kill vultures (Wildlife poisoning in Africa). BirdLife in Africa, NatureKenya (BirdLife Partner) and BirdLife Botswana (BirdLife Partner) are working at the grassroots level to educate local people, and lobbying for legislation to restrict the availability and use of poisons which are a threat to our environment and human well-being.

In Europe, BirdLife hosted an event to consider the implications of the European Union’s Renewable Energy Directive which sets targets for the use of sustainable sources of energy such as biofuels (Biofuels, the burning questions). The event focused on the need to fix the currently flawed methodology used to calculate the greenhouse gas costs and benefits of biomass. “Bioenergy can and must be part of the solution to climate change, but under current EU rules there is a great risk of perverse outcomes”, said Ariel Brunner – BirdLife’s Senior EU Agriculture Policy Officer.

We also launched two new reports in Brussels. The first revealed how rules attached to the spending of €31 billion each year through the Common Agricultural Policy are failing biodiversity (Through the green smokescreen). The second illustrated how Natura 2000 - a network of Protected Areas in Europe – needs more financial support from the European Union (EU protected areas starved of cash).

Protecting and managing networks of healthy ecosystems helps the world’s most vulnerable people to adapt to a changing climate. Birds are excellent indicators for the health of an ecosystem, and Important Birds Areas (IBA) are some of the most critical locations for birds across the globe.

Last month’s news illustrated the truly global nature of IBAs, and how BirdLife Partners are working successfully to protect them.

In Latvia, LOB (BirdLife Partner) have established a network of 70 volunteers to care for their IBAs (IBA Caretaker network established in Latvia).
In Argentina, Aves Argentinas (BirdLife Partner) announced the winners of a programme aimed at generating conservation action at their IBAs (Conserving Argentina).
In the Dominican Republic, Grupo Jaragua (BirdLife Partner) celebrated the creation of a new reserve within the Sierra de Bahoruco IBA - an essential habitat for high numbers (32 of the 34) of Hispaniola restricted-range birds, 14 threatened bird species and over 30 Neotropical migratory birds (New reserve declared within Dominican Republic IBA).
In Barbados, BirdLife has created the country’s first shorebird refuge at an abandoned shooting swamp on the flank of the St. Philip Shooting Swamps IBA ('No-shooting' shorebird refuge established in Barbados).

With human-induced climate change posing the greatest challenge to saving species, our attention is on the world’s governments who are meeting next week at the United Nation’s Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. They must ensure that a new deal is agreed that will tackle the global threats posed by climate change to people and nature. We’re watching this space...

Credits: Nick Askew