Global campaign launched to save nearly 200 endangered birds

U.K.-based BirdLife International is calling on environmental groups, corporations and individuals to contribute the US$37.8 million (euro28.4 million) needed for what it is dubbing the Species Champions initiative.

The money will be used to protect habitats, raise awareness and reduce invasive species that often eat bird eggs and compete for food.

The campaign comes as the numbers of extinct birds is on the rise, mostly due to poaching, habitat loss and overdevelopment. In the last three decades, 21 species have been lost, including the Hawaiian honeycreeper Poo-uli, Hawaiian Crow or alala and the Spixs Macaw from Brazil, BirdLife said.

“Critically endangered birds can be saved from extinction through this innovative approach,” the group’s Chief Executive Mike Rands said in a statement. “This is an enormous challenge, but one we are fully committed to achieving in our efforts to save the world’s birds from extinction.”

The first birds to benefit will be the Bengal Florican in Cambodia, the Belding’s Yellowthroat in Mexico, Djibouti Francolin in Djibouti and Restinga Antwren from Brazil. All have seen their numbers drop from a few thousand to a few hundred and their ranges limited to a few isolated locations.

The initiative includes creating a conservation plan in Mexico, regenerating forests in Djibouti, establishing a protected area in Brazil and restoring grasslands in Cambodia where less than a thousand of the Bengal Florican are found.

“Critically endangered birds represent a very vulnerable part of global biodiversity, and all need urgent action,” Mark Gately, the director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Cambodia program which is working to protect the Bengal Florican.

“Through conserving them, many sites and habitats important for other species will also be conserved,” he said. “The funds raised will directly support that work, and also conserve grassland areas that are used by nearby villages to sustain their livelihoods.”

Maria Alice Alves, an ecology professor at the Rio de Janeiro State University who coordinates the Restinga Antwren preservation project, welcomed word of additional funding.

“This is great news,” Alves said. “Until now, we’ve been working with our hat in hand to get funding for this project.”

Alves says most of their work has been devoted to documenting the distribution of the species which is limited to around 3,000 individuals covering some 48 sq. kilometers (18.5 sq. miles) along the coast east of Rio de Janeiro. The main threat to the species, according to Alves, is real estate speculation which has claimed large stretches of “restinga” as the wetlands are known in Brazil.

All the birds targeted in the campaign are on the World Conservation Union’s Red List of Threatened Species, which are defined as those on the brink of extinction.

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