A quarter of Asian bird species are of “conservation concern” and hundreds face extinction, bird conservationists warned on Tuesday
A quarter of Asian bird species are of “conservation concern” and hundreds are facing extinction, bird conservationists warned on Tuesday.
BirdLife International, a global alliance of bird conservation organisations, has published the most comprehensive assessment ever of bird numbers across Asia. The report, compiled by over 160 experts in 23 Asian countries, includes a detailed analysis of the threats facing each species and specific conservation measures that could be taken to protect the birds.
Out of about 2700 bird species in the region, nearly 700 are of conservation concern and over 300 are “threatened with extinction”. In 1981, just 51 species were confronting extinction, though the latest total has not increased since the last major assessment in 1994.
Nigel Collar, editor of the BirdLife International report, says the situation is worse than ever. “The status of habitats in Asia is markedly worse in 2001. Asian birds face an extinction crisis.”
Logging and hunting
BirdLife International says the biggest threat to the birds is losing habitat because of unsustainable human activities such as logging, agriculture, hunting and trade.
There are 41 species listed as critically endangered, including the recently rediscovered Forest Owlet. This means they only have a 50% chance of surviving the next decade, unless something drastic is done to save them. Of these species, 11 may already be extinct, the authors of the report say.
One of the most critical threats identified in the report is the wholesale clearance of lowland rainforest across the Sundaic region of Indonesia, Malaysia, southern Thailand, southern Myanmar and Brunei. An extinction “hotspot” within the area is the Indonesian island of Sumatra, where 17 forest species are threatened and another 73 species are “near threatened”.
Another highlighted species is the Siberian crane, which winters in Asia, and is losing its wetland habitat to agriculture and the development of oil fields. The authors warn that the construction of the controversial Three Gorges Dam in China will affect numbers even further.
The researchers say it is still possible to reverse the crisis, but that it will require governments working together to establish protected areas and create new legislation to protect wildlife. “We need to act urgently and on a scale greater than anything previously achieved if we are to avert the extinction crisis facing Asia’s threatened birds”, says Noritaka Ichida, Chair of the BirdLife Asia Council.
Threatened birds of Asia: The BirdLife International Red Data Book“