[Written by Alice Ward-Francis who is a Globally Threatened Species Officer in the RSPB's International Species Recovery Team]
Have you ever heard of Africa's Galapagos - São Tomé and Príncipe?
The beautiful volcanic islands of São Tomé and Príncipe in the Gulf of Guinea are biodiversity treasure troves, never mind hotspots. They supporting an astonishing endemic fauna and flora, including 28 birds, 81 butterflies, 60 snails, 3 mammals, 15 reptiles/amphibians and 148 plants (14% of the country’s flora). The level of bird endemism in relation to land area is globally unique. In fact, São Tomé's Obô Natural Park ranks as the third most irreplaceable site worldwide for threatened birds, just below two reserves in the Galapagos, in a recent study by Dr Ana Rodrigues and her team at the CEFE-CNRS institute in France.
Despite their importance, the species on the islands are at risk. Four are on the IUCN Red List as Critically Endangered, 1 is Endangered and 8 are Vulnerable. One of the most pressing threats is forest loss, driven by the economic development of the island, and including large-scale agriculture and energy development projects, such as oil-palm plantations and hydroelectric dams. These projects are underway in core areas for three Critically Endangered birds; particularly the dwarf olive ibis but also the São Tomé fiscal and São Tomé grosbeak.
Bird survey recording in Obo Natural Park. Yeli (left) a local field assistant is documenting the plants and Hugo Sampaio (right) is SPEA’s research coordinator for Sao Tome. (Alice Ward-Francis)
In order to conserve these birds and the tropical forest habitat that supports them, the first step has been to identify the bird’s distributions, which act as indicators for the best quality forest. Working in collaboration with SPEA, BirdLife in Portugal, and local field assistants, teams have carried out a total of four surveys on the island over the last two years, operating in extremely difficult conditions and managing to collect new information on the birds, forests and other endemic species. This has enabled the RSPB and SPEA scientists to begin to map out the core areas for the three species to inform and influence decision-making on land planning in São Tomé to conserve the most important tracts of forest on the island, including Obô Natural Park.
A recent trip by BirdLife representatives to the country in February, involved meetings with members of the São Tomé and Príncipe Government, in order to discuss some of the issues, including oil-palm development and hydropower investment and hunting policy. These meetings were very positive with Government representatives welcoming BirdLife to input information to decision-making on these issues. This is an important first step towards influencing land-use planning to protect the countries incredible wealth of biodiversity.
Meeting with the Prime Minister of Sao Tome.Luis Costa (left), Director of SPEA, Portuguese BirdLife Partner and Alice Ward-Francis (right), Globally Threatened Species Officer, RSPB, UK BirdLife Partner, meeting with the Prime Minister of Sao Tome and Principe, Gabriel Arcanjo Ferreira da Costa.
But it's not only the actions of conservation organisations that are critical for this ongoing work. Without financial support from the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund and new BirdLife Species Champions Nick Prentice (an RSPB Life Member) and his family, our ability to work on this priority site would be limited and the remaining dwarf olive ibis (most likely numbering fewer than 250 birds) would be at even more risk of extinction.
Yesterday was the International Day for Biological Diversity 2014. This year focus is on Islands Biodiversity. This is because islands and their surrounding near-shore marine areas constitute unique ecosystems often comprising many plant and animal species that are endemic—found nowhere else on Earth. The legacy of a unique evolutionary history these ecosystems are irreplaceable treasures. They are also key to the livelihood, economy, well-being and cultural identity of 600 million islanders—one-tenth of the world’s population. This blog is the third of four celebrating some of the island work that the RSPB is involved in.