On this blog we've been telling you about spoon-billed sandpipers at their breeding grounds in Russia and how they winter on the mudflats in Myanmar. However, as they don't teleport between the two, obviously a piece of the puzzle is missing.
This week my colleague Nicola Crockford is in Bucharest at the Ramsar Conference of Contracting Parties doing what she does best – trying to ensure that important wetlands are given statutory protection across flyways, so that migrating birds, including the spoon-billed sandpiper, don't get half-way along their journey and find there is nowhere to stop-over. She is hosting a 'side-event' tomorrow entitled "The disappearing tidal mudflats of the East Asian-Australasian Flyway", with the little spoonie firmly fixed as a flagship species for intertidal habitats that are rapidly being converted to industry, agriculture, airports and other uses. National and local governments alike see mud as a good place to develop – after all, it's just mud!
Spoonie wintering at the Min Jiang Estuary, China (Zheng Jianping)
Oh yes? Well Nicola, Queen of the Mudflats, will give you a pretty hard time if you believe this. For example, this flyway supports more migratory waterbird species and a higher proportion that are globally threatened than any other in the world, with 24 threatened waterbird species dependent on the mud. As much as 50% of the intertidal wetlands have disappeared around the Yellow and Bohai Seas over the last 30 years.
Overall, East Asian intertidal habitats (including beaches, marshes, mudflats, mangroves and seagrass beds) are being lost at a rate unprecedented for the coastal zone elsewhere in the world. Some countries have lost more than half of their coastal wetland area to land reclamation since 1980. These rates of habitat loss are comparable to those of tropical rainforests and mangroves!
The East Asian-Australasian Flyway, showing the importance of the Yellow Sea
In this most densely populated part of the world, the effects of reclamation act cumulatively with other threats to the ecology of the Asian intertidal zone system. These threats include pollution, non-native species, silt flow reduction resulting from damming of major rivers, over-fishing, unsustainable hunting of waterbirds, and conversion of mudflats for aquaculture or other uses, plus the added challenges of climate change, such as increased risk of floods.
Shorebirds and development in Bohai Bay (Jan van de Kam)
So not good for spoonies and their ilk, and not good for people in the longer term. I for one am relieved that we have the Queen of the Mudflats working to influence policy and apply pressure with a smile when we need it.
To find out more about Asian wetlands, critical to the survival of the spoonie, visit the IUCN site where you can download the latest report on the situation on the ground.
Hi Redkite
I have yet to find out whether Nicola is happy to be Queen - it's amazing what you can get away with when your colleagues are out of the office.
On a more serious note, the work she and others are doing is of critical importance to this migration route and the survival of a large number of species, birds and otherwise.
Best wishes
Ian
Great work by the RSPB and your Queen of the Mudflats, it is vital