Common birds are in decline across the world, providing evidence of a rapid deterioration in the global environment that is affecting all life on earth, according to BirdLife International an alliance of conservation groups.
"Birds provide an accurate and easy to read environmental barometer,
allowing us to see clearly the pressures our current way of life are
putting on the world’s biodiversity", said Dr Mike Rands, CEO of BirdLife, which released the report "State of the Worlds Birds" at its international conference in Buenos Aires this week.
The report identifies many key global threats,
including the intensification of industrial-scale agriculture and
fishing, the spread of invasive species, logging and the replacement of
natural forest with monocultural plantations.
However, Dr Rands said,
“In the long term, human-induced climate change may be the most serious
stress of all”.
The report highlights worldwide losses among widespread and
once-familiar birds.
- In Europe, 45% of common European birds are
declining. - In Australia, wading birds have seen
population losses of 81% in just quarter of a century [2]. - In North America, populations of 20 common birds have been cut in half in the last
four decades. - In Latin America, the yellow cardinal–once common in Argentina–is now classified as globally endangered.
- In Asia, populations of white-rumped vultures have crashed by 99.9% in 16 years and are now classified as critically endangered.
- In the Middle East, birds like the Eurasian eagle owl
are believed to be vanishing from forests - And seabirds–including the critically endangered Chatham Albatross–are disappearing from the world’s oceans.
“Many of these birds have been a familiar part of our everyday lives, and people who would not necessarily have noticed other environmental indicators have seen their numbers slipping away, and are wondering why” said Dr Rands. “Because birds are found almost everywhere on earth, they can act as our eyes and ears, and what they are telling us is that the deterioration in biodiversity and the environment is accelerating, not slowing.”
“Effective biodiversity conservation is easily affordable, requiring relatively trivial sums at the scale of the global economy”, said Dr Rands. For example, to maintain the protected area network which would safeguard 90 percent of Africa’s biodiversity would cost less than $1 billion US dollars a year –yet in a typical year the global community provides around $300 million.
“The world is failing in its 2010 pledge to achieve a significant reduction in the current rate of loss of biodiversity”, said Dr Rands. “The challenge is to harness international biodiversity commitments and ensure that concrete actions are taken — now!”
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