Integrated Bird Conservation in the U.S.

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US Fish and Wildlife Service employee, Patricia Kelly, is honored with the 2009 Bird Conservation Award for her dedicated efforts to significantly broaden shorebird conservation partnerships in Florida and improve integrated shorebird management.

Patty Kelly is located in the Service's Panama City, Florida Field Office, which has the lead for the conservation and recovery of listed species in the Panhandle, including Gulf Coast beaches. She is the lead for the wintering populations of the piping plover in this office and the southeast Region. Patty has extended her time and conservation work to include non-listed shorebirds throughout the state and significantly improve statewide permitting requirements and reviews of coastal development and erosion control projects.

After the hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005, when Florida experienced an unprecedented number of hurricanes and tropical storms, coastal erosion control efforts skyrocketed along with the rebuilding of storm-damaged roads, buildings, and other infrastructure. In many cases, rebuilding efforts focused on bigger, better erosion control structures, such as hard barriers, seawalls, buried sheet metal pilings, and beach nourishment projects that included berms to protect structures from high seas and over wash. Many of these 'improvements' alter the natural hydrologic and geomorphologic functioning of barrier islands, beaches, and peninsulas essential to the maintenance of shorebird habitats.

Recognizing the potential for serious habitat loss and degradation, Patty argued persistently and vehemently to protect these natural processes in the face of significant opposition from state and federal agencies and private property interests. Patty successfully convinced many people in numerous organizations that alternative and innovative solutions needed to be found to avoid adversely affecting shorebirds and their habitats. She first convinced other permit review biologists in her office, followed by other Service offices, state and federal biologists, and finally policy makers within the permitting agencies.

Because of Patty's courageous efforts, a statewide consultation on future Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) projects now includes shorebird protection measures, and two additional statewide permitting planning efforts are underway, one with the Army Corps of Engineers and one with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

Patty's single-handed efforts have changed the way land managers, biologists, and regulators view and consider coastal projects and shorebird conservation in a state that contains 1,180 miles of coastline, of which 746 are sandy beaches that provide shorebird habitat. Back to Top

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The Missouri Bird Conservation Initiative is honored with the 2009 Bird Conservation Award for their excellence in partnership development and on-the-ground accomplishments. Established in 2003, the Missouri Bird Conservation Initiative (MoBCI) is a grassroots partnership of 48 organizations dedicated to delivering bird conservation at the state and local levels. MoBCI gathers and bonds all members and their respective organizations into a common workforce for bird conservation.

While not replacing or duplicating the missions of member organizations, MoBCI has created a synergy and a voice of strength and reason in conservation action and advocacy in the state. Although individual MoBCI organizations vary greatly, these diverse groups have become an active force and voice for birds and their habitats in Missouri. Member organizations recognize that much more can be accomplished if they engage in partnership than if they operate independently.

MoBCI organizations have also seen that communication and cooperation yield an understanding and appreciation of each other's interests in birds, regardless of whether interests are in research, falconry, native seed production, establishing land trusts, hunting, birding, photography, or public land management. MoBCI is a respected and highly functional partnership that has developed a wide reach for bird conservation in Missouri.

MoBCI's grant program has served as a conduit for financial support of bird habitat projects totaling over $125,000 per year since 2003-2004. Matching funds more than double this amount to approximately $2 M over the grant program's six years. Eligible grant activities include projects that protect, enhance, or restore bird habitats on any lands in Missouri. Proposals are evaluated according to the priority bird species they address, priority habitats addressed, relation to national/international bird initiatives, partnerships, and other factors.

Since 2003, MoBCI has organized an annual conference in August with keynote speakers who challenged participants' thinking and underscored the importance of having a strong scientific foundation for national and regional planning efforts. Local project leaders reported on conservation successes as models for other project initiatives.

Three Missouri Governor's proclamations have celebrated International Migratory Bird Day and the MoBCI partnership.

A Directory of members and projects was developed to enhance dialogue across organizations and identify opportunities for them to work together. A MoBCI Web site (http://www.MoBCI.org) and e-newsletter promote communication on bird and bird habitat topics, including 'in-the-making' bird habitat projects to expand partner involvement.

Although the Missouri Bird Conservation Initiative is a relatively young partnership, in its six-year history MoBCI has aptly demonstrated how to create highly functional bird conservation partnerships at the state level and how to transform opportunities into on-the-ground accomplishments. Most importantly, MoBCI has created a forum for diverse bird interests to know and better appreciate one another, and that alone is a significant achievement. Back to Top

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Utah Linking Communities is honored with the 2009 Bird Conservation Award for their excellence in international conservation partnership-building, education, and on-the-ground accomplishments. Utah Linking Communities is a volunteer organization that has worked over the last ten years to build connections among people at three sites along a known shorebird migration route: Chaplin and Quill Lakes (Saskatchewan), Great Salt Lake (Utah), and Marismas Nacionales (Nayarit). It's project, called "Linking Communities, Wetlands and Migratory Birds," encourages people in the three communities to "think globally and act locally" to protect habitat using science, education, and ecotourism to conserve shorebirds and other bird species throughout their range.

Human communities at the three sites have different capacities in terms of knowledge, resources, and available funding, as well as different cultures, languages and organizational approaches. Utah Linking Communities overcame these challenges with great enthusiasm, personal dedication, and patience as they carried out creative plans for mutually beneficial activities.

Utah Linking Communities engaged numerous sponsors. In Utah, these included the Intermountain West Joint Venture, Utah Wetlands Foundation, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Weber State University, Davis County (home of the Great Salt Lake Bird Festival), Friends of Great Salt Lake, Dancing Crane Studio Nature Photography, Ogden Nature Center, Tracy Aviary, National Audubon Society, and US Geological Survey. The financial and in-kind assistance of these groups made possible activities at all three sites and stimulated investment by agencies and organizations in Saskatchewan and Nayarit.

Although the sites were selected because of shared shorebird species, activities happening at all three also benefit waterfowl, cranes, grebes, and resident colonial waterbirds. Moreover, activities were designed to benefit the social and economic welfare of people at the sites.

Marismas Nacionales in Nayarit has been the focal point for on-the-ground conservation, including planning, regulatory establishment and enforcement, sustainable use projects, restoration, and habitat and bird monitoring. In early 2007, a group of U.S. researchers worked with federal, university, and nonprofit biologists in Mexico to develop and implement an annual inventory and monitoring protocol for waterbirds and shorebirds. During the inventory, which functioned as both a training opportunity and a baseline survey, partners surveyed over 50 sites and recorded over 30,000 birds.

Utah Linking Communities also assisted with the 2006 focus on Range-wide Bird Conservation at the Great Salt Lake Issues Forum, sponsored by Friends of Great Salt Lake in Utah. This event brought together biologists and conservationists from all three sites and beyond.

Utah Linking Communities promotes and links three annual bird festivals: Chaplin Lake Bird Festival in June, San Blas Festival Internacional de las Aves Migratorias in January, and the Great Salt Lake Bird Festival in May. These festivals include cultural activities, bird tours, environmental education and academic lectures, and provide learning opportunities for tourists, community members, teachers, conservation groups, and local politicians, thus raising local awareness and understanding.

Utah Linking Communities' educators promote the Shorebird Sister School curriculum at all three sites, and arranged a teacher exchange between Nayarit and Utah. Visiting teachers shared experiences with the classrooms and created an international correspondence between the Mexican and American students. Since policymakers are another important audience, Utah Linking Communities organized a visit by Mexican dignitaries, including a Senator from Nayarit, with the State Utah Governor.

Utah Linking Communities has accomplished a great deal for a volunteer-based organization with no guaranteed funding. They have done this by reaching out to a wide variety of supporters, managing and building expectations, and carefully and patiently building confidence among partners separated by great distances. Back to Top

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Humberto Antonio Berlanga García is honored with the 2009 Bird Conservation Award for his long involvement in and dedication to promoting all bird conservation in Mexico. As an ornithologist for the Mexican government for the last 18 years, Humberto has made many significant contributions to conservation at the state, federal, and international levels.

Humberto led the effort to establish the Mexican all bird species assessment process based on the Partners in Flight landbird assessment protocol. Humberto coordinated four regional, three national, and two tri-national workshops, bringing together more than 100 regional and national bird experts. The workshops engaged Mexicans from federal agencies, universities, NGOs, and the public to address issues of species vulnerability, threats, and population trends to set conservation priorities. Mexico's all bird assessment provides a model for the continent to implement all bird conservation.

Humberto has been deeply involved in the North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP), Partners in Flight (PIF), and NABCI. He is currently working with PIF to develop a Tri-national Landbird Conservation Framework that includes Mexico and Mexican birds for the first time. He was also instrumental in developing the action plan for NABCI in Mexico (2001), and the tri-national Declaration of Intent for the Conservation of North American Birds and Their Habitat (2005). Humberto was intimately involved in developing the first tri-national NAWMP, and participated in developing NAWMP Updates. NAWMP and the North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA), which he helped establish in Mexico, have been fundamental in protecting and enhancing habitat for migratory and resident birds in Mexico and across North America.

Humberto worked on the first steering committee for the Important Bird Areas (IBA) Program in Mexico. Workshops were held throughout the country to establish the network known as AICAs (Áreas de Importancia para la Conservación de Aves). He promoted the project within the Mexican government and, as a result, AICAs are used as tools to prioritize sites for conservation, restoration, and research. He also led an effort to update and revise AICA information and produced a new more user-friendly, interactive database. The AICA web page (http://conabioweb.conabio.gob.mx/aicas/doctos/acias.html) is visited by ornithologists as a source of information and support for research, communication, and education.

Humberto led the process for selecting six regional sites to pilot NABCI projects in Mexico, based on AICAs, and linking them tri-nationally to sites in the US and Canada based on shared bird species. He encouraged regional alliances (Alianzas Regionales para la Conservación de Las Aves), identified financial resources, and helped develop conservation action plans. In addition, Humberto was instrumental in creating the Sonoran Joint Venture and serves on the Management Board for this first bi-national Joint Venture.

Humberto has been the primary leader in establishing a Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) program for northern Mexico. Working jointly with the US/Canada BBS program, he helped plan and carry out workshops in McAllen, Texas, Veracruz, Hermosillo, and Chihuahua. He represented Mexico during the BBS strategic planning process (2006). He garnered financial support for these efforts and the Mexican Important Bird Areas update through the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act.

Humberto has also been involved in the establishment of aVerAves (eBird Mexico), which provides citizen-science bird monitoring data in Mexico, and is a model for other Latin American eBird programs. The aVerAves web page (http://ebird.org/content/averaves) makes citizen-science bird data available for bird conservation.

Humberto is a leader in developing the soon-to-be-released Mexican Bird Knowledge Network (AVESMEX), the new conservation tool for Mexican avifauna. AVESMEX provides information on conservation status, threats, habitat needs, distribution, descriptions, photos/drawings of each bird species, links to eBird data, and bird lists for protected areas. AVESMEX includes a listing of Mexican bird experts, the first effort of this type in Mexico. It will be a core resource for integrating Mexican conservation planning.

Humberto's visionary leadership has resulted in the development of highly effective programs and projects for bird conservation in Mexico. Through his unsurpassed dedication to developing international, national, and regional partnerships, action plans, and programs, he has made a profound contribution to securing a future for bird populations across Mexico and the continent. Back to Top