The value of native bird conservation: A New Zealand case study

During December 2007 and January 2008, telephone surveys were used to randomly sample Waikato, New Zealand residents. The purpose of the surveys was to determine whether respondents valued native bird conservation programmes in their area. We elicited the contingent valuation approach to determine the value in terms of their willingness-to-pay (WTP) to support regional conservation initiatives aimed at protecting, or restoring, native bird populations. Results indicated that local birdlife was regarded positively by residents and that they were in favour of local conservation and restoration initiatives. 86% of respondents were willing-to-pay an annual addition to their rates (taxes) to support these initiatives. Conservatively, the value of native bird conservation in the region was approximately $13 million (2008 NZ$). Willingness to support these initiatives depended strongly on income, ethnicity and age. The positive WTP for additional regional rates for local birdlife conservation suggests that there could potentially be an underinvestment in birdlife conservation in the Waikato region, and that regional bodies could draw upon local funding, as opposed to relying on central government funding, to support these initiatives

Bring the bird music back across New Zealand part of Smart Hamilton Smart Space

Every day, all around New Zealand, the dawn chorus tells us that our birdlife is one of our greatest treasures. Yet, New Zealand’s native birds are under threat from introduced predators such as possums, rats and stoats. How can modern information technology help to solve this problem

Black Stork Down: Military Discourses in Bird Conservation in Malta

Tensions between Maltese hunters and bird conservation NGOs have intensified over the past decade. Conservation NGOs have become frustrated with the Maltese State for conceding to the hunter lobby and negotiating derogations from the European Union’s Bird Directive. Some NGOs have recently started to organize complex field-operations where volunteers are trained to patrol the landscape, operate drones and other surveillance technologies, detect illegalities, and lead police teams to arrest poachers. We describe the sophisticated military metaphors which conservation NGOs have developed to describe, guide and legitimize their efforts to the Maltese public and their fee-paying members. We also discuss why such groups might be inclined to adopt these metaphors. Finally, we suggest that anthropological studies of discourse could help understand delicate contexts such as this where conservation NGOs, hunting associations and the State have ended in political deadlock

Global Hotspots of Conflict Risk between Food Security and Biodiversity Conservation

This work contributes to the Belmont Forum/FACCE-JPI DEVIL project (grant number NE/M021327/1), and AM is supported by a BBSRC EastBio Studentship (http://www.eastscotbiodtp.ac.uk/). The Conservation Biology Institute are acknowledged for provision of data as well as BirdLife International, IUCN, NatureServe, and USGS for their contribution of the species range map data used in producing data available from the Biodiversity Mapping website (http://biodiversitymapping.org).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Inventario de avifauna del norte de Entre Ríos, Argentina: registros notables y perspectivas de conservación

Biodiversity inventories remain fundamental tools for biodiversity conservation. Neotropical biota has poor faunal inventories. In Argentina, the avifauna of the province of Entre Ríos is still not well known. Here, we present the first exhaustive bird inventory of Northern Entre Ríos. We recorded 317 bird species. Three species were new for the province of Entre Ríos and eight were new for Northern Entre Ríos. We recorded 17 threatened species, 4 biome-restricted species and two restricted range species. The high bird diversity of Northern Entre Ríos contrasts with the lack of effective reserves to ensure the survival of endangered species. Creation of natural reserves in this area is urgent. These protected areas should have a management plan and stable park rangers assigned, to ensure the protection of the avian diversity of Northern Entre Ríos.Los inventarios de Biodiversidad siguen siendo herramientas fundamentales para la conservación de la biodiversidad. La biota neotropical posee inventarios incompletos de fauna. En Argentina, la avifauna de la provincia de Entre Ríos permanece poco estudiada. Presentamos el primer inventario exhaustivo de aves para el norte de Entre Ríos. Registramos 317 especies de aves, tres son nuevas para la provincia de Entre Ríos y ocho son nuevas para el norte de Entre Ríos. Diecisiete especies están consideradas amenazadas, 4 son especies restringidas a un bioma y dos especies son de rango restringido. La alta diversidad de aves del norte de Entre Ríos contrasta con la falta de reservas efectivas que puedan asegurar la supervivencia de las especies amenazadas. La creación de reservas naturales en esta región es urgente. Estas áreas protegidas deberían tener planes de manejo y guardaparques estables asignados, para asegurar la protección de la diversidad de aves del norte de Entre Ríos.Fil: Dardanelli, Sebastián. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro Regional Buenos Aires Norte. Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Delta del Paraná; ArgentinaFil: Reales, César Fabricio. Provincia de Entre Ríos. Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción. Universidad Autónoma de Entre Ríos. Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción; ArgentinaFil: Sarquis, Juan Andrés. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Limnología "Dr. Raúl A. Ringuelet". Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Limnología; Argentin

Connecting species’ geographical distributions to environmental variables: range maps versus observed points of occurrence

Connecting the geographical occurrence of a species with underlying environmental variables is fundamental for many analyses of life history evolution and for modeling species distributions for both basic and practical ends. However, raw distributional information comes principally in two forms: points of occurrence (specific geographical coordinates where a species has been observed), and expert-prepared range maps. Each form has potential short-comings: range maps tend to overestimate the true occurrence of a species, whereas occurrence points (because of their frequent non-random spatial distribution) tend to underestimate it. Whereas previous comparisons of the two forms have focused on how they may differ when estimating species richness, less attention has been paid to the extent to which the two forms actually differ in their representation of a species’ environmental associations. We assess such differences using the globally distributed avian order Galliformes (294 species). For each species we overlaid range maps obtained from IUCN and point-of-occurrence data obtained from GBIF on global maps of four climate variables and elevation. Over all species, the median difference in distribution centroids was 234 km, and median values of all five environmental variables were highly correlated, although there were a few species outliers for each variable. We also acquired species’ elevational distribution mid-points (mid-point between minimum and maximum elevational extent) from the literature; median elevations from point occurrences and ranges were consistently lower (median −420 m) than mid-points. We concluded that in most cases occurrence points were likely to produce better estimates of underlying environmental variables than range maps, although differences were often slight. We also concluded that elevational range mid-points were biased high, and that elevation distributions based on either points or range maps provided better estimates

Birds and people in Europe

At a regional scale, species richness and human population size are frequently positively correlated across space. Such patterns may arise because both species richness and human density increase with energy availability. If the species-energy relationship is generated through the 'more individuals' hypothesis, then the prediction is that areas with high human densities will also support greater numbers of individuals from other taxa. We use the unique data available for the breeding birds in Europe to test this prediction. Overall regional densities of bird species are higher in areas with more people; species of conservation concern exhibit the same pattern. Avian density also increases faster with human density than does avian biomass, indicating that areas with a higher human density have a higher proportion of small-bodied individuals. The analyses also underline the low numbers of breeding birds in Europe relative to humans, with a median of just three individual birds per person, and 4 g of bird for every kilogram of human

The PHPA/BirdLife International -Indonesia Programme: Goals and Approaches

The PHPA/BirdLife-Indonesia Programme (IP) is a collaborative conservation programme between the Ministry of Forestry, Directorate General of Forest Protection and Nature Conservation (PHPA) and BirdLife International, formalised in an Agreement approved by the Secretariat Kabinet, Republic of Indonesia, This paper provides a brief digest of the goals, structure, approaches and activities of the programme