The first coordinated trans-North African mid-winter waterbird census: The contribution of the International Waterbird Census to the conservation of waterbirds and wetlands at a biogeographical level (original) (raw)

Building capacity in waterbird and wetland monitoring in eastern Africa

2007

The wetlands of eastern Africa support internationally important assemblages of plants and animals, and are a vital source of livelihood and water for many societies. The combined human population of Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda is estimated to be about 200 million. The region has an area of about 5.6 million km2 of which only 4.5% is open water/wetlands. Wetland conversion to agriculture often provides only short-term benefits and can pose long-term problems. The ever-increasing human population density coupled with the scarce water resources in Africa have put African governments under increasing pressure to allow further exploitation and drainage of wetlands. Lack of sufficient up-to-date information to guide policy and development programmes for the respective Africa governments is considered as one of the causes for the continued loss and degradation of wetlands. To fill this information gap, it was recognized that a standardiz...

Successful conservation of global waterbird populations depends on effective governance

Nature, 2017

Understanding global patterns of biodiversity change is crucial for conservation research, policies and practices. However, for most ecosystems, the lack of systematically collected data at a global level limits our understanding of biodiversity changes and their local-scale drivers. Here we address this challenge by focusing on wetlands, which are among the most biodiverse and productive of any environments and which provide essential ecosystem services, but are also amongst the most seriously threatened ecosystems. Using birds as an indicator taxon of wetland biodiversity, we model time-series abundance data for 461 waterbird species at 25,769 survey sites across the globe. We show that the strongest predictor of changes in waterbird abundance, and of conservation efforts having beneficial effects, is the effective governance of a country. In areas in which governance is on average less effective, such as western and central Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and South America, waterbird de...

Assessing the effectiveness of the Ramsar Convention in preserving wintering waterbirds in the Mediterranean

Biological Conservation, 2020

Although biological conservation is based on international agreements, its effectiveness depends on how countries implement such recommendations as effective conservation tools. The Ramsar Convention is the oldest international treaty for wetland and waterbird conservation, establishing the world's largest network of protected areas. However, since it does not constitute any binding measure, its effectiveness in protecting wintering waterbird populations at an international scale has been questioned. Here, we use long-term (1991-2012) count data to assess the effectiveness of the Ramsar Convention in the Mediterranean Basin. We compared abundance and temporal trends of 114 waterbird species between 251 Ramsar wetlands and 3486 non-Ramsar wetlands. We found that the Ramsar network is critical for wintering waterbirds, concentrating nearly half of all waterbirds counted in the Mediterranean Basin in only 7% of monitored wetlands. Waterbird trends followed a northwestsoutheast gradient, with a population decrease in the East. A significant and positive Ramsar effect on population trends was only found for the species of higher conservation concern in the Maghreb, particularly when a management plan was implemented. The Ramsar Convention was previously used on very important wetlands for waterbirds in Southern Europe, but is now an underused conservation tool. Our study suggests weaknesses in the use of Ramsar as an effective conservation tool in most of the Mediterranean Basin. However, the Ramsar Convention effectiveness to enhance waterbird populations in the Maghreb should encourage strengthening the Ramsar Convention. It should be done particularly in countries with limited environmental agreements and by systematic implementation of management plans.

Issues arising from changes in waterbird population estimates in coastal Ghana

Reported in this paper are waterbird census data collected from four coastal wetlands in Ghana over a period of 16 mo, with extrapolations made to indicate possible changes in population trends and bird distribution in the study area. Results indicated that Ramsar sites continue to play invaluable roles in the support of waterbirds on the coast of Ghana despite the presence of waterbird species on a large number of smaller, unmanaged wetlands. On the other hand, results also indicate that waterbird populations and distributions in Ghana, as reported previously, have changed. The need for conservation action for the waterbird species in Ghana increased with respective dependency on unmanaged wetlands, with 56% of species possibly affected.

Positive impacts of important bird and biodiversity areas on wintering waterbirds under changing temperatures throughout Europe and North Africa

Biological Conservation, 2020

Migratory waterbirds require an effectively conserved cohesive network of wetland areas throughout their range and life-cycle. Under rapid climate change, protected area (PA) networks need to be able to accommodate climate-driven range shifts in wildlife if they are to continue to be effective in the future. Thus, we investigated geographical variation in the relationship between local temperature anomaly and the abundance of 61 waterbird species during the wintering season across Europe and North Africa during 1990-2015. We also compared the spatio-temporal effects on abundance of sites designated as PAs, Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs), both, or neither designation (Unlisted). Waterbird abundance was positively correlated with temperature anomaly, with this pattern being strongest towards north and east Europe. Waterbird abundance was higher inside IBAs, whether they were legally protected or not. Trends in waterbird abundance were also consistently more positive inside both protected and unprotected IBAs across the whole study region, and were positive in Unlisted wetlands in southwestern Europe and North Africa. These results suggest that IBAs are important sites for wintering waterbirds, but also that populations are shifting to unprotected wetlands (some of which are IBAs). Such IBAs may therefore represent robust candidate sites to expand the network of legally protected wetlands under climate change in northeastern Europe. These results underscore the need for monitoring to understand how the effectiveness of site networks is changing under climate change.