We've had a flurry of reports about the state of birds at a global, European and UK level recently. Today sees the launch of another: Birds of Conservation Concern 4 (BoCC4). This provides new Red, Amber and Green lists for the bird species that occur regularly in the UK, Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. This is probably the most important report of all as it gives a clear steer as to where we should be investing our finite conservation efforts here in the UK.
The news from this review, published in a paper in the December issue of the journal British Birds and summarised on the RSPB website here , is not great. There are now 67 species on the Red list, 96 on the Amber list, and 81 on the Green list; over one-quarter of the UK’s birds are Red-listed. The Red list has grown by 15 since the last review in 2009. Twenty species have been added, but three species Red-listed previously have moved to the Amber list, and another two are now no longer assessed as they have ceased breeding in the UK (as has another species, Amber-listed previously). Those lost breeders include the Wryneck, the first once-common species to have been lost from the UK since the Great Bustard nearly two centuries ago.
Below, RSPB's Principal Conservation Scientist, Mark Eaton (who has helped shape the report), explains how the assessments are made and offers a commentary on the findings. At the end of the blog, I explain how we shall be responding to these findings.
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Each species has been assessed against a set of quantitative criteria, using the best data on the status of birds in the UK and elsewhere within their ranges. The criteria assessed the historical decline, trends in population and range, population size, localisation and international importance of each species as well as their global and European threat status.
BoCC assessments, along with other measures such as the UK’s Wild Bird Indicators, act as a barometer allowing us to track the fortunes of our birds as a whole: the largest ever increase in the Red list is therefore of great concern. The lists are also invaluable for prioritising, allowing us to identify the bird species that most urgently need our help, which is vital when tight resources mean we can’t help everything, all the time, everywhere, and hard choices have to be made. They also help us to identify the wider patterns in our birds, and indeed, with a little caution, biodiversity more widely. This new review highlights that all is not well in our uplands – five of the 20 species new to the Red list are upland birds (curlew, dotterel, merlin, whinchat and grey wagtail) – and tells us that we need to step up our efforts to improve the management of our hills, moors and mountains. The addition of three more seabirds (puffin, kittiwake and shag) to the Red list reinforces the concern we have for our globally-important breeding seabird populations, and what their declines may be indicating about the state of marine ecosystems around the UK. And the decline in our migrant birds – particularly those that spend the winter in the humid tropics of sub-Saharan Africa – is highlighted once again. Back in 2009 BoCC3 shocked us with the Red-listing of an iconic songbird, the cuckoo: BoCC4 does it again by adding nightingale to the Red list.
However, the news from BoCC4 is not unremittingly bleak – there is cause for hope. Three species have moved from the Red list to Amber and for two of these, bittern and nightjar, we can point towards the role of targeted conservation action in their recovery. The bittern sunk perilously close to extinction in the UK in the 1990’s before a programme of research showed us how a combination of creating new reedbeds and improving the condition of existing ones could help this species to boom – if you’ll excuse the well-worn pun. This spring our bittern population reached levels not known for over 200 years. Elsewhere in the lists, the move of the once Red-listed red kite from Amber to Green is further cause for celebration. A soaring red kite featured on the cover of the UK’s first Red list, the ‘Red Data Book’ published in 1990, and at that time it was restricted to the valleys of central Wales. That it can now be found soaring above large swathes of the UK’s four countries is a remarkable triumph. These examples demonstrate that given the resources (which we struggle for) and the willpower (which we certainly have) there remains hope for the 67 species on the new Red list.
Once again, the partnership of NGOs and government agencies behind the BoCC assessment find themselves grateful to the unstinting efforts of thousands of expert volunteers who contribute to the evidence base which underpins our conservation. BoCC4 draws on a wide range of data sources, such as the BTO/JNCC/RSPB Breeding Bird Survey, the BTO/JNCC/RSPB Wetland Bird Survey, the Rare Breeding Birds Panel, single species surveys such as those conducted under the Statutory Conservation Agency and RSPB Annual Breeding Bird Scheme (SCARABBS) and the Bird Atlas 2007-11. All of these data sources rely on volunteer birdwatchers, prepared to give their time and expertise, and without which such vital assessments would not be possible.
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The RSPB has finite conservation resources and my job is to ensure that we are targeting our effort on the right bits of biodiversity to have maximum bang for our conservation buck. So, assessments like the BoCC act as an important guide as to where we should direct action. That's why we shall use this latest assessment to update our own species recovery priorities.
The reality, of course, is that need is inevitably greater than available resource. So we have to think and act smart. Smart conservation means ensuring that we deploy the right conservation tool (eg research, direct land management, advice or advocacy) to the right species in the right place (for example core or edge of a species' range) with the right partners (be they landowners, business, government or NGO). Equally, we will only withdraw investment once sustainable management is secured for priorities species. it is inevitable therefore that we have to make some tough choices.
But, as Mark implies, we must remain optimistic. This latest BoCC assessment shows that when we have diagnosed the problem, identified solutions, and when conservation action is targeted and adequately funded, we can bring species back from the brink.
And that's what we'll carry on doing.