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.

The 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: