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Setting Conservation Priorities for Birds in Latin America
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 Resplendent quetzal © Tim Miller/The Nature Conservancy |
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Collaboration and additional funding were provided by:
Technical advice and distributional data were obtained from:
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The tropical forests of the Amazon, the vast wetlands of the Pantanal, the coastlines of the Yucatan and the dry forests of the Central American Pacific coast are among the many habitats in Latin America that host a diversity of bird species. Unfortunately, continuing deforestation and habitat degradation threaten these very same places that act as havens to thousands of bird species. In order to effectively protect the most number of species that are of the highest conservation concern as a result of these threats, accurate data on their distribution and conservation status is urgently needed.
Utilizing existing data on the distribution of birds of conservation concern in Latin America, The Nature Conservancy's Migratory Bird Program and the University of Arkansas' Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies initiated a comprehensive conservation assessment project to identify "hotspots" for birds that are in greatest need of protection. The project provides the data and tools to pinpoint locations where these species could receive the greatest benefit through habitat protection efforts by the worldwide conservation community.
The first component of the project involved developing a comprehensive list of birds of conservation concern in Latin America through the consensus opinions of the bird conservation community. Using those species deemed of greatest conservation concern by BirdLife International, The Nature Conservancy, and the influential publication "Neotropical Birds: Ecology and Conservation," the hemisphere's foremost ornithological experts and conservationists came together and agreed upon one single, well-defined list of Latin American resident birds that are facing severe threats and need the most urgent protection.
This list includes more than 1,200 species, which make up over 25% of the bird species known to exist in Latin America.
The project synthesized existing geographical range data on these species' distributions from a variety of sources and placed the information into a mapping format based on a uniform grid cell size. This information has been integrated with other spatial information including national, ecoregional and protected area boundaries to allow for advanced analysis of species habitat modeling, "hot spot" identification and protected area gap analysis. Elevational data, habitat information, and other data layers can be added and manipulated using standard Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software.
The Nature Conservancy has the opportunity to use this data for its national conservation portfolio strategy effort, which lays the blueprint for its international conservation work in the immediate future. In Latin America, the bird data that indicate areas of conservation priorities for species of concern will hopefully facilitate site conservation initiatives, habitat protection efforts and effective bird management practices. In North and Latin America, the data and associated analytical tools are being disseminated widely via CD-ROM and the internet to stimulate conservation efforts in local areas and scientific review and to spur additional analyses.
To learn more about this project, or to request the CD-ROM, contact David Mehlman at
