Conservation of migrants on their wintering grounds: an overview

Most research on the behaviour and ecology of wintering migrants has been undertaken in the Neotropics. In Africa, conservation biologists are faced with a comparative paucity of baseline data to assess the significance of environmental change, in contrast to the comparatively well‐developed monitoring programmes in place on the breeding grounds. A programme of monitoring, established through international collaboration and matched with further ecological research, is required. Given the ‘dispersed’ distribution of most passerine migrants, determination of the significance of apparent detrimental effects can be hard to ascertain. However, migrants may provide conservationists with an effective vehicle for the provision of input into region‐wide development policy. It is only through influencing regional development policies within the continent that large‐scale and long‐term conservation of important bird habitats will be achieved.