Goals and Activities

Long-term monitoring of bird populations

AfriBiRds contributes to creating awareness and to filling the knowledge gaps regarding the state of declining species in the wintering grounds with a special focus on Palaearctic migrants. NABU and BirdLife will adapt and implement a long term bird monitoring scheme at two demonstration biosphere reserves as a nucleus for standardised replication and comparative expansion of similar systems, first, forming the African Network of Biosphere Reserves, secondly, through the BirdLife Africa partnership, finally, to the wider landscape in the countries of the pilot sites.

In this respect, AfriBiRds carries a threefold strategy, supporting:

• the integration of the African-Eurasian Migratory Landbirds Action Plan (AEMLAP) from the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS);


• the implementation of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and of the “Life on Land” Sustainable Development Goal (SDG15);


• the fulfilment of the monitoring of the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Programme (MAB) in the African Biosphere Reserves.

With AfriBiRds, NABU and BirdLife aim to apply science of bird monitoring in the context of biosphere reserves in Africa.

The following activities are completed:

• An initial inventory of relevant bird monitoring initiatives and online open bird data archive/exchange platform lays the foundation for defining a flexible methodological protocol in for AfriBiRds inspired from the Land Common Bird Populations Monitoring in Africa and aiming to complementary fullfil the BirdLife Important Bird Area and the Southern African Bird Atlas intiatives.


• For selecting the two implementing pilot sites, AfriBiRds surveyed 40 African Biosphere Reserves of the UNESCO MAB program enabling to reveal the current knowledge, equipment and practices on bird monitoring and to identify the constraints to be removed so that African organizations managing protected area can play a pro-active role in bird conservation.


• AfriBiRds trained and accompanied on-site two monitoring teams in the Comoé National park and the Omo Forest Reserve to initiate a long term biannual bird trend census and to conduct local awareness bird conservation initiatives. Among others, a fifth of the organizations responsible for managing UNESCO AfriMAB protected area directly benefited from the AfriBiRds bird monitoring workshop training.

AfriBiRds supplies biosphere reserves in Africa, BirdLife Partner organisations and other potential users with a bilingual AfriBiRds monitoring toolkit and two worked-out demonstration schemes to guideline effective common bird monitoring replication and expansion.

project overview

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