Project AfriBiRds
African Biosphere Reserves as pilot sites for monitoring and conservation of migratory birds
Every year Afro-Palearctic migratory birds travel thousands of kilometres between African wintering and European breeding grounds. The birds have to stand bad weather, strong winds and cross large, harsh ecosystems such as the Sahara desert or the Mediterranean Sea.
It is generally acknowledged that the degradation of habitats and critical stop-over sites, hunting and trading, risks of collision and diseases are threatening the birds along their flyways. Nevertheless, the lack of birds’ observations and consistent monitoring schemes in Africa creates a large information gap in understanding the population trends of Afro-Palearctic migrants. This information is needed for weighing different factors of populations decline affecting birds’ wintering and breeding grounds, migration routes and, consequently, for identifying ways to reverse the decreasing trends.
AfriBiRds aims to develop and implement a standard scheme for long-term monitoring of bird populations with a particular focus on migratory landbird.
Please visit our page Goals and Activities for further information.
The Comoé National Park in Ivory Coast and the Omo Forest Reserve in Nigeria were selected to be the pilot case studies among the 40 UNESCO Biosphere Reserves candidates to our project monitoring network via survey participation.
Please visit our page Pilot Sites for further information.
After training events and the first biannual monitoring campaign, the project developed a bilingual AfriBiRds monitoring toolbox as a nucleus template for standardized monitoring in other protected areas and for potential expansion of the initiative to a wider landscape.
Please visit our page Toolbox for further information.
Among other partnership, the biodiversity monitoring managers from 16 organizations were nominated to receive a bird monitoring and conservation training workshop during one week, representing one fifth of the AfriMAB network.
Please visit our page Partnership for further information.
A Project Advisory Committee associates members from 22 organizations for advising and reviewing annually project dissemination outcomes.
Please visit our page Publications and Events for further information.
The project “African Biosphere Reserves as pilot sites for monitoring and conservation of migratory birds”, abbreviated as AfriBiRds, is a collaboration between NABU and BirdLife. It runs from December 2016 to August 2019 and is supported by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) with funds from the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU). The national Birdlife partners, SoS Forets and the Nigerian Conservation Foundation are co-implementing on-site bird monitoring scheme together with the Office Ivoirien des Parcs et Réserves and the Forest Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria.
the project in detail
Goals and Activities
The project aims to develop and implement a pilot scheme for long-term monitoring of bird populations including Palaearctic migrants in African biosphere reserves as a template for application in other biosphere reserves and the wider landscape. more →
Pilot sites
The Comoé (Côte d’Ivoire) and the Omo (Nigeria) UNESCO Biosphere Reserves are the two selected AfriBiRds sites for establishing a pilot common bird monitoring scheme. For characterizing environment and avian significances of the pilot sites, we give the floor to our local partners for introducing their personal experience and their vision of the bird monitoring project. more →
AfriBiRds Monitoring toolbox
The AfriBiRds monitoring toolbox is a free available module online. The documents will help you to understand why counting birds is an important activity for nature conservation, how to set a bird monitoring scheme, how to use other supportive tools and more. more →
Publications and Events
An overview about all the materials yet published and a documentation of events regarding the AfriBiRds-Project. more →
Partnership
The AfriBiRds project closely collaborates with UNESCO’s World Network of Biosphere Reserves as well as the BirdLife Partnership Network for birds’ conservation in African biosphere reserves. AfriBiRds wants to acknowledge the engagement of the project team, the biosphere reserves as well as the partnership networks and sponsors of the project. more →
related topics
Protected Areas
NABU supports the creation, establishment and effective management of protected areas as part of our international activities, not exclusively but with special emphasis to UNESCO biosphere reserves, which are characterised by integrative and segregative approaches. more →
Biodiversity
Ecosystem functioning needs to be seen as a global task: Therefore NABU is active in biodiversity hotspots and beyond. As part of the BirdLife network bird conservation has a long tradition for us. It’s efforts are directed to the whole biodiversity.
more →