From the last of the large to the remnants of the rare: Bird Conservation at an Ecoregional Scale

Abstract

Because of the vast intercontinental distances that birds can travel in the course of a year between winter and summer grounds, bird conservation requires planning across large landscapes, even sometimes spanning the globe. I review a number of efforts to institute ecoregional and trans-ecoregional conservation planning efforts focused on birds, including Partners in Flight, U.S. Shorebird Conservation Plan, Waterbird Conservation for the Americas, the North American Bird Conservation Initiative and Joint Ventures, all of which seeks to overcome the parochial limitations of local-scale planning. These initiatives highlight the importance of (1) applying conservation values beyond that of simple rarity, (2) integrating conservation plans across political boundaries and even continents, (3) making conservation plans that are both spatially explicit and policy specific, and (4) emphasizing the conservation needs of birds over the research needs of science. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.