BirdLife International launches Flyways Campaign

Cambridge,
21 March 2009
- Birdlife International has announced
the launch of its "Born to Travel" Flyways Campaign,
which aims to protect migratory birds along the African-Eurasian
flyway. Launched on the first day of the northern spring,
the new BirdLife International campaign will try to create
more awareness on migratory birds which travel across Africa
and Eurasia with the aim of securing better protection for
them.

"Every year, migratory birds brave
mountains, oceans, deserts and storms on their journeys
to survive", said Dr. Marco Lambertini, the new CEO
of BirdLife International. “Their epic flights connect
us all - crossing our borders, cultures and lives. However,
we are destroying the habitat they need to rest and re-fuel,
building hazardous structures such as powerlines which cross
their path, and illegally shooting and trapping them",
added Dr. Lambertini.

Click here to visit the: http://www.borntotravelcampaign.comThe
Born to Travel Campaign is focussing on those migratory
birds which use the African Eurasian Flyway, including all
migratory waterbirds, songbirds and soaring birds which
migrate between Africa, the Middle East, parts of Asia and
Europe.

"The Born to Travel campaign will
help raise awareness on the need to conserve migratory birds
in many countries along the African-Eurasian flyway"
said Bert Lenten, Executive Secretary of the African-Eurasian
Migratory Waterbird Agreement (AEWA). “The campaign
could also prove to be very beneficial for many of the waterbird
species protected under the African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird
Agreement (AEWA)" underlined Lenten.

The new campaign is an attempt by BirdLife
International to respond to worrying declines of many migratory
bird species using the African-Eurasian flyway. According
to BirdLife International, more than 40% of migratory birds
passing between Africa, the Middle East and Europe, have
declined in the last three decades. Of these 10% are classified
by BirdLife as Globally Threatened or Near Threatened on
the IUCN Red List.

The latest “Conservation Status Report
of Migratory Waterbirds in the African-Eurasian Flyways”
prepared by Wetlands International for AEWA confirms these
trends. The study reveals that 41 % of the known trends
for 522 migratory waterbird populations on the routes across
Africa and Eurasia show decreasing trends and highlights
that the situation is even worse for waterbirds using Western
and Central Asian Flyways, where 55 % of populations with
known trends are currently declining.

For more information please see:

Last updated on 16 June 2014