BIRD CONSERVATION: THE SCIENCE AND THE ACTION

SUMMARY1 Birds are hugely popular and the public demands their conservation. 2 Ornithology has made a major contribution to nature conservation by virtue of this popular support. The value of birds as environmental indicators has been greatly enhanced by voluntary data collection on a wide scale over many years. 3 Habitat loss and degradation are the main causes of species decline, even though other factors may contribute to extinction. More research should address the causes of decline at an early stage, while the chance of recovery is highest. 4 The geographical ranges of native bird species should be maintained, both to avoid the risk of local or wider extinction and to enable people to enjoy them as part of their normal experience. 5 To maintain species ranges, conservation must be incorporated in policies affecting the wider countryside and the sea. This is as important as managing protected areas. 6 The management of protected areas can be successful only in the context of sympathetic management of the surrounding countryside. 7 The Biodiversity Convention requires countries to produce national conservation plans and strategies. This offers ornithologists an unprecedented opportunity to contribute to conservation by developing explicit objectives and specific targets for the maintenance (or restoration) of numbers and distributions of species and of extent and quality of habitats. Targets should be ambitious but realistic and be sufficiently precise as to be testable. 8 Predictive models have the potential to support conservation advice, but traditional natural history studies have proved vital in the past and theory could not replace them. 9 Detailed ecological research with long data runs is the ideal basis for conservation action. But urgency demands shorter studies, informed by ecological intuition and knowledge and reaching specific recommendations for action. 10 Conservation actions should be treated as experiments so that techniques can be improved progressively. This applies both to the management of nature reserves and to habitat management stemming from broader policy measures (for example, in Environmentally Sensitive Areas). 11 Monitoring across a wide species base is essential because the threats to wildlife are unpredictable. Birds have proven to be successful indicators because they are highly visible, are enthusiastically counted by volunteers and respond to a wide variety of environmental impacts. 12 Threshold levels, indicating the normal upper and lower levels of variation (for instance, in numbers or breeding success), are needed in order to trigger prompt remedial action. 13 Monitoring, research and conservation action must be taken forward internationally. Integrated and common approaches enable exchange of data and information and reinforce national actions across the range. 14 Existing data need to be made more accessible bygreater collaboration and openness and by the use of computerization. 15 Ornithologists need to build stronger partnerships, both with other biologists and with decision‐makers across the range of land‐use and economic policy. This will be helped by better communication built on clear but simple messages for non‐biologists. 16 The training of future ecologists should take into account the wide range of skills required by the expanding discipline of conservation.