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On 12 September the World Conservation Union (IUCN) launched
the 2007 edition of the global Red List of Threatened Species
- the most authoritative assessment of the risk of extinction
of the world’s biodiversity.
Seven species of birds changed their status
compared to the previous assessment and all apart from one
were upgraded to higher categories, i.e. became more threatened.
Amongst those more threatened birds is one AEWA species
– the Red-breasted Goose (Branta ruficollis)
- which is now Endangered (previously Vulnerable).
This charismatic goose has always been
on the IUCN Red List. The species is represented by a sole
population, which breeds in the Russian tundra and winters
along the western and north Black Sea coast. After the remarkable
complete switch of wintering areas in the 1960s from the
western Caspian coast to the Black Sea it was thought that
the population collapsed from ca. 60,000 to just about 25,000
birds. At the end of the 1990s the hope for the species
revived when up to 90,000 geese were counted in Bulgaria
and Romania. It was just a few years later, however, when
the population plummeted again – not more than 34,000
birds were counted over the last three winter seasons. Reasons
for this decline are not yet known.
An international Single Species Action
Plan for the Red-breasted Goose was prepared and approved
in 1996. This plan is being implemented now under the auspices
of AEWA. The AEWA Secretariat, together with RSPB,
WWT
and
Vogelbescherming Nederland are supporting the
International Red-breasted Goose Working Group. This group,
comprising experts and conservation practitioners, is aiming
at implementing the Species Action Plan and improving the
status of the Red-breasted Goose. Since 2006
a full-time staff-member is helping
the coordination of the group. The group carries out regular
simultaneous winter monitoring in Bulgaria, Romania, and
Ukraine.
It is, however, stronger commitment and
action from the governments of the range states that is
urgently needed (Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Ukraine,
Romania, and Bulgaria). More research is necessary to reveal
this species' little-known ecology and monitoring should
be strengthened, extended and continued. At the same time
there are urgent conservation needs and the role of governments
in such cases is indispensable. For example, lakes Durankulak
and Shabla and their surroundings - the key sites in Bulgaria,
where the species concentrates at winter with more than
70% of its global population - did not yet receive the consent
of the government for designation as Natura 2000 areas and
are threatened by plans for golf courses and other rapid
infrastructural developments.
The majority of the Red-breasted Goose
flyway span, however, lies within countries, which have
not ratified AEWA yet - Russia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan.
Their accession to the Agreement will be a key prerequisite
for completing conservation strategies for the Red-breasted
Goose and other waterbirds.
For accessing the IUCN Red List 2007 please
click here:
http://www.iucn.org/themes/ssc/redlist.htm
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