Each year, more than two hundred species of waterfowl leave their breeding areas through the tundra, marshes and frozen forests of North Asia, to spend the winter in the temperate climates of Australia and New Zealand. Southeast Asian wetlands to refuel with abundant coastal worms and mollusks. These important habitats form the center of the East Asia-Australasia flyway, one of the world’s major bird migration routes. has it been achieved so far?
A new paper published in the journal Oryx, written through BirdLife and several of our national partners, highlights the scale of the challenge, adding the giant gaps in the fundamental ecological wisdom of shorebirds in the region, adding where the maximum vital sites are located. Wisdom gaps have hampered efforts to make wetlands the most vital thing for endangered species.
Even when vital sites have been identified, no action has necessarily been taken. For example, while 180 Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) in Southeast Asia involve coastal wetlands, only a small number are protected by law. for migratory waterfowl still want to be studied, and ongoing studies, such as satellite tracking, have exposed wetland spaces that are home to endangered species, but are not absolutely documented.
“Few, if any, of the most important sites for shorebirds (Manila Bay in the Philippines, the Mekong Delta in Vietnam or the Penang Coast in Peninsular Malaysia) are areas lately. it will be lost in a few years if nothing is done,” said Ding Li Yong, BirdLife’s regional coordinator for the conservation of migratory species and co-author of the paper.
Coastal progression and land reclamation are lately the threats of greatest concern, the authors noted. “Here in Malaysia, our studies have recognised that the northern coast of the mainland state of Penang is of exceptional importance to shorebirds, adding the Spotted Barking Redhorse (Tringa guttifer – Endangered),” says Chin-Aik Yeap, conservation officer at the Nature Society of Malaysia (partner BirdLife) and co-author of the paper. However, the coastal aquaculture allocation proposed here will threaten giant portions of this domain for birds and biodiversity as mangroves will be cut down. “
However, the authors conclude that there are suitable fundamental models for the conservation of migratory waterfowl in Southeast Asia, one of them being the Pak Thale Nature Reserve, an initiative led by the Bird Conservation Society of Thailand (BirdLife Partner) to identify a domain. For threatened shorebirds, such as the critically endangered spoonbill-billed laundress Calidris pygmaea. As a component of this initiative, classic marshes, a vital resting and feeding habitat for shorebirds, are conscientiously conserved and managed. in combination to create conservation teams and sustainable livelihoods.
While there is many possibilities to protect Southeast Asia’s wetlands, there is a rapidly shrinking window of opportunity to mobilize conservation resources and scale up action. The Australasia Migration Routes Partnership will mobilize resources at the scale needed to protect our shared coastal wetlands and the livelihoods of others who count on them.
“The Asian Development Bank’s Regional Migration Pathways Initiative provides us with an important livelihood to protect these wetlands. But we want to act quickly, in the coming years if possible,” says Gary Allport, Senior Technical Advisor at BirdLife.
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