Important Bird Areas in the Amazon Basin
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The network of Amazonian Important Bird Areas (IBAs) previewed in this publication provides a simple but effective blueprint for conserving the region’s unique bio- diversity. Integration of this portfolio of key sites within national and regional development agendas is a ` rst step to ensuring the future of the Amazon and all that depend on it. 1. Introduction Photo: Murray Cooper The Amazon is the ultimate biodiversity-rich tropical highest deforestation rate for any tropical forest wilder- Wilderness Area, encompassing more than 6.918.202 ness area in the world. Logging remains the biggest million km² in nine South American countries. It com- threat, through clear-cutting and selective-extraction; prises 53% of the remaining global cover of tropical the area selectively logged is approximately equal to rainforest and accounts for approximately 10% of all the deforested area. Major deforestation drivers include net terrestrial primary production. Within its borders agricultural expansion policies, and a number of exist- a ows the largest river system on Earth. ing and planned infrastructure development projects. The Amazon is home to more species of plants and ani- Although the Amazon bene ts from a number of con- mals than any other Wilderness Area (see Table 1), with servation initiatives, no single reserve is currently pro- perhaps 30% of the world’s species found there (Mit- tected to the extent required, and over the entire basin, termeier et al. 2002). Recent surveys indicate at least just 8.3% of the area receives some form of protection 40,000 species of plants (30,000 considered endemic), (Mittermeier et al. 2002). Conservation of the Amazon 1500 species of birds (263 endemics), 427 mammals requires a landscape-level approach. Such approaches (173 endemics), 387 reptiles (216 endemics) and 427 typically involve the identi cation and integration into amphibians (364 endemics). The Amazon is also home broader socio-political agendas of inter-connected net- to a wealth of indigenous cultures with about 350 works of core conservation areas, linked by habitat cor- known tribes. As with the biodiversity they depend on, ridors, and protected by buffer zones. the future of many of these tribes is threatened (e.g. about one third of the 170 tribes in the Brazilian Ama- A fundamental challenge is to identify the sites which zon have populations of less than 200 people (Mitter- should form the core conservation areas. One clearly meier et al. 2002). demonstrated and cost-effective way to do so is through the identi cation of Important Bird Areas (IBAs). Bird- Threats to the Amazon are equal to its immense size. Life International’s IBA Program is designed to identify, In the Brazilian Amazon, deforestation has averaged protect and manage a network of sites of international 18,000 km² per year since 1998, and the total area importance for birds and biodiversity in general, and to deforested by 2003 was 648,500 km² or 16.2% of its compliment conservation approaches focused on spe- original cover (Costa K. et al. 2009). This represents the cies and habitats. 1 2. Important Bird Areas: Approach and criteria IBAs are key sites for the conservation of birds and other IBAs are identi ed through participatory processes that en- biodiversity, and comprise building blocks for conserva- gage local stakeholders (including government agencies, tion planning. They are identi ed nationally, by applying NGOs and local experts) and provide opportunities for all internationally agreed criteria, and using data gathered to contribute ideas, information and to learn about the pro- locally. The worldwide network of IBAs forms an essential cess. By such means, IBA identi cation provides a mecha- foundation for global nature conservation. nism to build solid foundations for effective conservation of IBAs through helping to develop technical and conser- To qualify as an IBA, a site must meet one or more of four vation capacity, build partnerships between key organi- Global IBA criteria that address the two primary issues of zations (both government and non-government) generate concern in site conservation: vulnerability and irreplace- broad ownership of the initial site inventory, and focus ability (see “Global IBA criteria” box 1). new survey work on the most important knowledge gaps. Photo: Murray Cooper Figure 1. Amazonian IBAs 2 3. Identifying IBAs in the Amazon 3.1. De nition of the Amazon tion regarding land tenure (compounded by the fact that in many areas formal land management structures do not For the purposes of this analysis, the limits of the Amazon exist). These present signi cant challenges for the iden- basin were de ned following the proposal of OTCA (Or- ti cation of IBAs. They were in part resolved through ganization of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty) and the combining species data with maps of soil types, topog- European Comission in 2005: raphy, forest types, and logging concessions. In addition, socio-economic data were used to guide the delineation “The Amazon Basin is de ned as the catchment area process, to avoid areas that are already heavily utilized conformed by the uvial network of the Amazon and or socio-politically complex, and to incorporate existing Tocantins river basins, extending through Bolivia, Brazil, protected areas into the IBA network. Importantly, it was Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela, from tributaries recognized that there is no theoretical maximum size for to the estuary of the Amazon River (including salt water an IBA: what is sensible from a biological perspective ecosystems). This includes Amazonia sensu stricto, the must be balanced with what is practical for conservation. area of the Amazon and Tocantins river basins, dominat- This has resulted in the identi cation of a number of very ed by the Amazonian Low Forest Biome (it also includes large IBAs, an approach which is consistent with existing smaller areas of other types of forest and non-forest veg- Amazonian protected areas. In many cases, where a site etation with its associated fauna); as well as the eastern has already been designated as an actual or proposed slopes of the Andes from Bolivia in the south to Colom- protected area, the existing boundaries were accepted as bia in the north” (Eva & Huber. 2005), an altitudinal limit the boundaries of the IBA. Only in exceptional circum- of 700 m was also established. stances were they modi ed, for example if they excluded an area of particular importance. 3.2. IBA identi cation in the Amazon Basin The IBAs of the ve countries of the Tropical Andes (Bo- The Amazon basin, as with other Wilderness Areas, is livia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela) were characterized by large expanses of relatively homoge- ` rst identi ed in 2004. During 2008, information for neous habitat, a scarcity of biodiversity distribution data those IBAs lying within the Amazon basin was updated, (which when available is often biased towards access through nationally-led processes. The IBAs of Amazonian routes such as roads and rivers), and a lack of informa- Brazil, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana were iden- ti ed for the rst time during 2007-2008 through partici- patory national processes. To date, 130 IBAs have been identi ed in the Amazon Region (Figure 1) covering a total area of 120,679,121 ha (17.24% of the total area); 7 in Ecuador, 10 in Colombia, 13 in Peru, 14 in Bolivia, 18 in Venezuela, 42 in Brazil, 9 in Suriname, 8 in Guyana and 9 in French Guiana. Of these IBAs, 96 have been con rmed under the globally Global IBA Criteria: Box1 • Species of global conservation concern (CR, EN, VU and NT species on the IUCN Red List) The site regularly holds signi cant numbers of one or more globally threatened species or Near Threatened species (NT). • Assemblage of restricted-range species (species restricted to EBAs with ranges of 50,000 km²) The site is known or thought to hold a signi cant component of the restricted-range species whose breeding distributions de ne an Endemic Bird Area. • Assemblage of biome-restricted species The site is known or thought to hold a signi cant component of the group of species whose distributions are largely or wholly con ned to one biome. • Congregations The site is known or thought to hold, on a regular basis, a globally signi cant concentration of one or more congregatory species. Photo: Murray Cooper 3 threatened species criterion for a total of 101 threatened (mainly driven by monocultures) and cattle raising, in- and Near Threatened species, 85 under the restricted- formal mining, illegal logging, the development of large range species criterion, 65 under the biome-restricted infrastructure projects such as those within IIRSA, market criterion and 14 under the congregatory species criterion. forces; changes in attitudes within the population, among others. Different factors have different effects and relative While great advances have been made in identifying IBAs importances in each country. in the Amazon basin, it is important to bear in mind that the current network of sites re ects our state of knowl- Deforestation continues to be driven by the same fac- edge and says nothing regarding the conservation impor- tors as in the 1990s, though since 2000 annual forest tance of surrounding areas not identi ed as IBAs. These clearing has shown an increasingly tight correlation should be considered, at a minimum, as priority areas for to commodity prices, especially soy and beef, which research, and potentially as priority areas for conservation have bene ted from the near eradication of foot-and- through a broad landscape-scale approach. mouth disease in cattle and agricultural innovation that has converted the region’s poor acidic soils into 3.3. Threats to Amazonian IBAs land suitable for extensive soy farms.