BirdLife International acaba de presentar el “State of the World’s Birds”, un comprehensive report on the status of the world’s more than 10,000 bird species. The work compiles contributions from the NGOs from 121 countries that make up BirdLife International, including SEO / BirdLife as a Spanish partner, and was announced during the BirdlLife International World Congress, which is held this week in Ottawa (Canada).
The report shows thatthe world’s avifauna continues to deteriorate as many species are near extinction and many others show gradual decline. The main threats they face are the destruction and degradation of habitat – largely due to agricultural practices – and the impact of invasive species are the two most important drivers of deterioration.
It should be noted thatit is not purely ornithological data. What the report shows is an X-ray of theglobal state of nature, since birds, due to their ubiquity and sensitivity to alterations in their environment, are a great indicator of what happens in the natural environment. “Birds are an accurate and easy-to-read environmental barometerand that allows us to clearly see the pressures that our current way of life is causing on the environment ”, says Leon Bennun, Scientific Director of BirdLife International.
BirdLife International is the officially designated authority by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to report on birds that should be included on the Red List of endangered species. In the last review, 1,313 species (one in eight of the world total) were classified as threatened with extinction. Of these, 189 are considered “Critically Endangered”. Since 1500 it is estimated that 150 species of birds have already been lost, a rate of disappearance that exceeds the natural pattern of extinction several times.
Threatened birds are not equally distributed among the different groups.Among the most affected are, for example, large seabirds such as albatrosses.(77% of the different species are threatened), cranes (73%), parrots (29%), pheasants (21%) and pigeons (20%). In general, large ones and those with low reproduction rates or small territories are the most vulnerable.
Sparrows and swallows disappear
It is also very alarming to see that many species that until recently were common and generally distributed are experiencing a sharp decline throughout the world. In Spain, for example, birdlife monitoring data carried out by SEO / BirdLife show adecline of well-known birds such as sparrows, swallows or partridges. On a global scale, the phenomenon occurs in both temperate and tropical regions and in all types of habitats, such as farmlands, forests and wetlands, which warns of large-scale environmental problems. There are exceptions: some bird populations are stable and others are increasing, which is partly due to efforts to conserve them, and also because there are some species that thrive better in disturbed ecosystems.
Despite this, the most positive and inspiring message of the “State of the World’s Birds” is that conservation works. When threats to birds are addressed with well-targeted measures, successes are achieved. Some species have been pulled from the brink of extinction showing spectacular results in their recovery. Ydegraded habitats can be restored, says the report, contributing hundreds of case studies on the ground.
