The plight of birdlife in Africa and other parts of the world is being highlighted at a meeting that is currently under way in the South African port city of Durban.
Empowering People for Change, a global conservation conference hosted by BirdLife International, began on March 7 and will wrap up this Saturday (March 13). It has attracted about 350 delegates from more than 100 countries. BirdLife International is an umbrella organisation for conservation groups around the world.
Earlier this week, BirdLife launched a global report on bird populations, warning that a third of the world’s bird species is at risk of extinction. This amounts to about 400 types of birds.
State of the World’s Birds says that a number of groups face a particularly acute threat, including three species of vultures in South Asia and the world’s 21 species of albatrosses. Almost 10% of the 2Â 313 African bird species are now recognised as being threatened.
According to the report, 43% of the most important locations for birdlife in Africa have not been designated as conservation areas. These locations include 1Â 230 important bird areas (IBAs) in 58 countries and territories across Africa and associated islands.
Furthermore, only 33% of African IBAs are fully covered by environmental legislation.
In the Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea and Sao Tome and Principe, more than 90% of IBAs are unprotected. The smallest of these is a single kapok tree at Boa Entrada in Cape Verde, one of only two minuscule breeding sites for the Cape Verde purple heron.
The largest unprotected IBA is the Tibesti Massif in Chad, covering 33Â 000 square kilometres: an area larger than Belgium or Lesotho, according to the report.
At least four bird species — the dwarf olive ibis, maroon pigeon, Sao Tome scops-owl and Sao Tome oriole — are headed for oblivion in the tiny West African island nation of Sao Tome and Principe.
“These birds are found only in Sao Tome, and nowhere else in the world,” says Adrian Long of BirdLife International.
“Sao Tome has no game parks to protect animals. Hopefully, international attention will get through to Sao Tome. Funding organisations may establish protection zones there.”
The main threats affecting IBAs in African countries are habitat clearance for agricultural purposes, commercial logging and the gathering of wood for fuel. Hunting also plays a role.
The tug-of-war over land resources between humans and birdlife is clearly visible in Nigeria. Human activity is undermining efforts to preserve forests and protect threatened species, says Muhtari Aminu-Kano of the Nigerian branch of BirdLife International.
“Nigeria has 130-million people living on less than 900Â 000 square kilometres of land. The majority of the people living in this overcrowded country are poor. They want to grow food, build houses and roads. Their activities impact heavily on birds,” he observes.
Aminu-Kano says only 5% of Nigeria’s forests are still in existence, and that even these woods are being destroyed at an alarming rate.
“We are losing 350Â 000 hectares of forests every year out of the original 5% of forests left,” he said. “The situation is very dire indeed.”
Current global funding for protected areas is just $7-billion a year. However, less than $1-billion is spent in the developing world — which holds most of the world’s biodiversity, according to State of the World’s Birds. The $7-billion expenditure notwithstanding, protected areas around the globe still have an annual budget shortfall of about $2,5-billion, according to BirdLife.
Expanding the network to safeguard biodiversity adequately would cost another $21,5-billion a year. While this might seem a large amount, BirdLife points out that it is a mere fraction of the money spent on “perverse” subsidies that damage the environment and encourage economic inefficiency. These amount to between $1-trillion and $2-trillion.
Leon Bennun, senior editor of State of the World’s Birds, says: “Birds are excellent environmental indicators, and State of the World’s Birds shows that what they are telling us is that there is a fundamental malaise in the way we treat our environment.”
On a more positive note, the report also describes how nearly a quarter of threatened birds around the world (280 species) have begun to benefit from conservation activities implemented with the help of national governments, communities and NGOs.
With 4% of species, the benefit has already been judged “significant”. As the report points out, this shows how timely action based on good science can reverse the slide towards extinction.
Aminu-Kano says that in Nigeria, effective conservation has meant working closely with local communities.
“We are finding ways of using the forest without destroying it. For example, we advise beekeepers to crop honey from the bark hive without using fire as they traditionally do. Fires burn and destroy forest, and affect birds,” he said. — IPS