RT23: Conservation of globally threatened species

Bibby, C.J. 1999. Conservation of globally threatened species. In: Adams, N.J. & Slotow, R.H. (eds) Proc. 22 Int. Ornithol. Congr., Durban: 3201-3202. Johannesburg: BirdLife South Africa.

About 12% of the world’s birds are threatened with extinction. There is a great opportunity for ornithologists to contribute to the global effort for conservation by improving knowledge and awareness of these species and the factors underlying their threatened status. Discussion covered five related topics numbered below.

Discussion generated several important ideas on design of surveys, especially the need to think and stratify in habitat terms and to look for methods which could contribute information on both spatial and temporal patterns. There was a divergence of views on the extent to which a well-designed distribution atlas was one of the best ways of starting.

There was quite a strong feeling of urgency to deal with more common species, often reflecting more widespread and politically relevant issues. This would amount to a triage in which the most threatened are simply abandoned to their fate, though no one explicitly suggested such a course. It was suggested that preventing more species from joining the threatened lists should be a high priority. Over-valuing species at the edge of their range was to be avoided.

Attention should be given to important sites, such as protected areas and going to places or regions in most need, perhaps identifying them by a biome approach.

There is a lot of knowledge already available and the desire to collect more should not divert attention from conservation work. A greater effort is needed to make existing knowledge more widely and practically useful and available.

There was general support for improving the social and political relevance of bird studies. Surveys should have clear purpose, simple design and repeatability. Thought should be given to the balance between intensive and extensive efforts. The accurate location of records in space (using GPS if possible), and by habitat (but there is not a simple system) is important. Negative records are important.

There is potential to increase the number of participants both using traditional volunteers and developing the ability of wider constituencies such as local people, park rangers or landowners, to contribute. Bird tour companies are a further potential source of new records. Training is important both in bird identification and survey methods.

The value of targets was appreciated and participants felt that this was as much a political as a scientific process. The need to remain relevant by understanding the linkages between bird conservation problems and the fundamental issues of human populations and development was argued very strongly. As a result, the importance of participation and of education was stressed.

This subject area is not yet very familiar to ornithologists. There is risk of confusion of terms and meanings. We need to understand exactly what we mean by indicators and how good birds are. What would we overlook if we simply relied on bird data is perhaps the best way to express the question.

We need to promote previous success stories in the use of birds as indicators but at the same time work with other biologists to see what they can contribute. Common birds are potentially good for detecting widespread environmental trends and surveys can be efficient. Flagship species can communicate conservation messages.

A caution was raised about the risk of being mislead by a species only surviving in a sub-optimal habitat.

There was some feeling that more important academic studies were better conducted on common species though attention was drawn to the range of questions and research opportunities arising from studying in the tropics where many northern based ideas about bird ecology are proving to be inadequate. The point was strongly made that academic ornithologists in northern institutes have to live within the constraints of their working culture and neither tropical work nor practically motivated work were necessarily well regarded. Conservationists have an opportunity, and perhaps a social responsibility, to promote support for relevant research work.

An alternative view was expressed that there are more important topics for ornithology to work on and enough is already known about conservation whose major difficulty is in solving problems that are generally understood. Many people felt, and the 22^nd IOC showed that interest in conservation biology is actually progressing very well amongst ornithologists. Future IOCs might further develop their conservation content still further.