BirdLife International

BirdLife International

Motto	Partnership for Nature and People
Formation	1922
Type	INGO
Purpose	Conservation
Headquarters	Cambridge, United Kingdom
Region served	Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe and Central Asia, Pacific
Chairman	Khaled Anis Irani
Chief executive	Hazell Thompson (acting)
Website	www.birdlife.org

BirdLife International is a global partnership of conservation organisations that strives to conserve birds, their habitats and global biodiversity, working with people towards sustainability in the use of natural resources. It is the world's largest partnership of conservation organisations, with over 120 partner organisations.^[1] The partnership forms the leading authority on the status of birds, their habitats and the issues and problems affecting bird life.^[2]

History

BirdLife International was founded in 1922 as the "International Committee for Bird Protection" by American ornithologists T. Gilbert Pearson and Jean Theodore Delacour. This lobbying group changed its name in 1993 to "BirdLife International".^[3]

Regional work

BirdLife International has conservation work programmes in the following parts of the world, which it describes as "regions" - Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Central Asia, the Middle East and the Pacific.^{[4][5][6][7][8][9][10]}

Global programmes

Within each of these regions, BirdLife has nine programmes - some are well established, others are more recent and responding to specific conservation issues. In addition to the regional programmes, there are "global" programmes, not specific to a region. Together these programmes help the partnership to focus and work on common priorities. They provide the framework for planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluating conservation work. BirdLife programmes are; the Seabird and Marine Programme, the Birdlife Preventing Extinctions Programme, the Migratory Birds and Flyways Programme, the Climate Change Programme, the Forests of Hope Programme, the Local Empowerment Programme, the Invasive Alien Species Programme and the Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas Programme.^{[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]}

Magazine

BirdLife International publishes a quarterly magazine, World Birdwatch, which contains recent news and authoritative articles about birds, their habitats, and their conservation around the world.^[19]

Red List

BirdLife International is the official Red List authority for birds, for the International Union for Conservation of Nature. In the 2012 assessment, 1,313 species of birds are considered threatened with extinction (in the categories of critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable). This represents 13% of the 10,064 extant bird species in the world.

See also

• allaboutbirds.org

References

External links

• BirdLife International Home Page
• BirdLife International Data Zone with fact sheets for all bird species
• BirdLife International Data Zone with fact sheets for all Important Bird Areas (IBAs)
• BirdLife International Data Zone with fact sheets for all Endemic Bird Areas (EBAs)
• BirdLife International - State of the world's birds case studies
• List of Birdlife International national partner organisations