Partners in Flight "Flight Plan"

An abundance of wild birds contributes to ecosystem health and provides economic, recreational, scientific, and aesthetic values for society. Fostering cooperative, voluntary, and coordinated habitat management on private and public lands that will lead to the conservation of avian diversity throughout the Western Hemisphere is the subject of the Partners in Flight Bird Conservation Strategy, or simply, the Flight Plan.

The Flight Plan provides a simple, effective framework for establishing regional and local conservation priorities for bird and the habitats upon which they depend. There are four steps, outlined in more detail on a separate page, in the planning process:

Setting priorities - identifying which species and habitats are in greatest need of conservation

Establishing priorities - setting measurable goals to let us know where we are headed

Conservation action - working with local groups and individuals to implement the plan

Evaluation - measuring our success, refining the plans

Introduction

The Partners in Flight Bird Conservation Strategy summarizes the collective actions that are being taken and that are necessary for the conservation of birds. The Strategy provides the framework for Bird Conservation Plans that set conservation priorities and specific objectives for bird populations and habitat for every state and ecoregion in the country. Furthermore, the Strategy lays out the means by which these Plans can be implemented. This process involves an unprecedented level of voluntary cooperation and coordination among state and federal agencies, private organizations, industry, and the public. The power in the process lies in the synergy that builds when such diverse and committed groups work together for a common goal.

Partners in Flight and the Bird Conservation Strategy are common sense approaches to the conservation of birds and their habitats. This Strategy initially addresses only nongame land birds in the United States and depends upon conservation decisions and actions taken at local and state levels. However, it lays the groundwork for international cooperation on long-term conservation of all birds throughout this hemisphere.

Basic Principles of The Flight Plan

conservation when it should be done -- before species become endangered

conservation based on sound science

conservation that stresses both healthy ecosystems and wise management of natural resources

local and timely conservation within the context of large-scale objectives and long-term plans

conservation of habitats in breeding, migration, and wintering areas

an informed constituency of people concerned about bird conservation

groundbreaking partnerships that foster voluntary cooperation among public and private landowners

Development of Bird Conservation Plans will be a simultaneous and iterative "bottom-up" and "top-down" process in which actions are decided upon and taken at grassroots and local levels in the context of priorities set at larger geographic scales. Coverage will be geographically comprehensive, with plans developed for each ecoregion and state. Although variability among plans reflecting local conditions and interests will be expected and encouraged, regional and national level plans will be developed to assure comprehensive attention to priority issues.

Focused, cooperative, and voluntary habitat conservation on a landscape level is the key to bird conservation. A concentration on habitat will improve conditions for all birds, whether migratory or resident, endangered or common, game or nongame, and will contribute to the protection of other animals, plants, and communities. Success will not be possible without recognition of landowner objectives and encouragement of compatible uses of the land.

Ultimately, the Strategy can be applicable to the conservation of the over 800 species of birds in the continental United States and close to 4000 in the Western Hemisphere. Many of these birds bind our nations together through annual migrations and their dependance on the conservation of habitats across international boundaries. As plans become more international and taxonomically comprehensive, they will build on the success of international treaties, Partners in Flight, the North America Waterfowl Management Plan, the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network, and the many conservation efforts of the federal government, state wildlife agencies, private conservation organizations, and industry. Each of these programs will retain its own special identity and constituency, yet each will become more effective through greater collaboration and cooperation.

The Conservation Process

The Partners in Flight Bird Conservation Strategy consists of four steps that result in the development and implementation of Bird Conservation Plans.

Step I. Identify species and habitats most in need of conservation

The first step is to identify birds most in need of conservation action. Priorities are set within biologically appropriate conservation planning units, such as physiographic areas (e.g., Mississippi Alluvial Plain), watersheds, or ecoregions (e.g., shortgrass prairie). The nature of planning units will vary geographically, depending upon the distribution of birds and their habitats and locally-achieved consensus decisions.

Within a planning unit, each species is prioritized according to a set of criteria including population trends, size of geographic range, and threats on the breeding and nonbreeding grounds. The values assigned to each species provide an index of conservation need. High priority species can be grouped into species suites that tend to occur together and presumably respond similarly to habitat conditions and management practices.

Step II. Establish population and habitat conservation objectives

There are two parts to this step: Describe the habitat conditions and management practices favorable to priority species or species suites

Set objectives for the nature, extent, and distribution of favorable habitat conditions or populations of priority birds

In the first part, current principles of conservation biology and knowledge of the natural history of birds and the ecosystems they inhabit are used to describe conditions that will foster long-term maintenance of healthy populations. This process can result in recommendations that may include the number of birds necessary to sustain a population, the amount and configuration of habitat that a population needs, habitat characteristics that should be maintained within habitat blocks, and the temporal and spatial stability of habitat conditions.

Turning an understanding of the needs of birds into specific landscape-level conservation objectives is perhaps the most important, and often conceptually the most difficult, component of the planning process. Objectives must be set relative to a baseline understanding of the current status of bird populations and habitat conditions. The nature of objectives will vary among planning units on the basis of geography, land use history, and conservation opportunities, and may be phrased in terms of numbers of populations or habitat patches, densities of birds, or population trends. Although Partners in Flight attention has been largely focused on breeding terrestrial birds in the United States, these objectives must include a broader consideration of potentially important migration or wintering conservation issues. Each conservation planning unit must be evaluated as a landscape rather than as a collection of independent sites, and each unit must meet its bird conservation responsibilities within the context of regional and international needs.

Conservation objectives must be set within the context of the economic and sociological factors that influence conservation potential, particularly landowner objectives. This strategy cannot succeed without the voluntary and eager participation of private landowners. Objectives must also ultimately be integrated with other conservation issues. Birds are a necessary but not sufficient component of planning for the conservation of biological diversity.

Step III. The Bird Conservation Plans: Actions to meet objectives

Three overlapping concepts capture the entire range of actions that have been or can be taken to enhance the conservation of birds. There have been and continue to be successes in on-the- ground application of these concepts; Bird Conservation Plans will specifically and efficiently target them for the accomplishment of defined landscape-level objectives.

(1) Landscape Prescriptions and Best Management Practices -- Many birds can benefit more from the application of Prescriptions across landscapes than from activities limited to designated sites. An example could be maintenance of certain quantities of land in various successional stages across a region. The exact sites for particular conditions will vary over time. Best Management Practices can be modifications of standard management practices, developed within landowners' varied operational and economic constraints, that improve conditions for birds in small but important ways. Examples include grazing and burning programs that benefit prairie birds, timber management programs that benefit forest birds, and maintenance of woodlots for in-transit migrants.

(2) Bird Conservation Areas -- These are large areas that sustain or are capable of sustaining healthy populations of birds. Bird Conservation Areas may be single land holdings specifically designated for conservation purposes (such as a Wilderness Area of a National Forest). More typically they include multiple cooperating landowners who voluntarily coordinate their management practices to provide a constant base of habitat needed by birds. The nature of bird conservation efforts in these areas must be compatible with other social and economic priorities.

(3) Important Bird Areas -- Sites that are critical to rare species or large concentrations of a species should be designated and managed as Important Bird Areas. Examples include waterfowl (Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, Texas) and shorebird (Delaware Bay) concentration areas, seabird nesting cliffs (Pribilof Islands), islands inhabited by threatened, endemic species and subspecies (Santa Cruz Island, California), endangered species areas (Kirtland's Warbler breeding habitat), and key landbird stopover sites (High Island, Texas).

Step IV. Implement Bird Conservation Plans and monitor progress

Completion of the first three steps in this Strategy will result in a Bird Conservation Plan. Implementation is the final and most challenging step. Although the biological objectives in the Plans should be set within conservation planning units, implementation may be more effectively accomplished within politically-defined units through the efforts of state or provincial working groups. A large array of conservation tools must be included within these Plans. These include:

(1) Partnerships -- This most obvious and fundamental factor in conservation is embodied in Partners in Flight Working Groups, but requires continual expansion and improvement.

(2) Funding -- Accomplishment of these ambitious objectives will require innovative funding mechanisms, including dedicated sources of federal, state, and private funding.

(3) Research -- Development and implementation of these Plans will stimulate new research efforts focused on key conservation questions, including issues of natural history, population health, and accommodation of birds in managed landscapes.

(4) Education and Outreach -- Achieving Plan objectives will require an effective and comprehensive information and education campaign directed toward policy makers, landowners, community leaders, and the general public.

(5) Policy -- National, state, and local governments must be active and constructive partners in the conservation of birds and habitat. A policy strategy should be developed in order to encourage the effective application of existing incentives, policies, treaties, and laws and the development of new initiatives for improved governmental participation in conservation efforts.

The entire process must be "adaptive" in nature, with the flexibility for adjustments in Bird Conservation Plans and their implementation in response to observed results of actions. There will be two sources of information that may indicate that changes are necessary:

(1) Regional, National, and International Plans -- The sum of the efforts in conservation planning unit and state Bird Conservation Plans must add up to adequate levels of protection throughout the ranges of priority bird species. Simultaneous application of this Strategy at these different geographic scales will help assure achievement of this goal.

(2) Monitoring -- Finally, there must be a means of evaluating the results of all of these efforts through a long-term commitment to monitoring the status of bird populations. Beginning with the Breeding Bird Survey and other existing efforts, a comprehensive monitoring program is needed to measure results and influence further conservation and management actions.

Partners in Flight and the Future of Birds

Bird conservation is a complex challenge. Birds use virtually every habitat on the surface of the earth and recognize no political boundaries. A single migrating bird may pass through a dozen countries that each has its own conservation priorities and challenges. Conserving birds and their habitats is beyond the capacity of any one organization, agency, or country. But when many groups work together, and their efforts are fueled by the enthusiasm of millions of birdwatchers and wildlife supporters, tremendous synergy is possible. This Strategy and development and implementation of Bird Conservation Plans will capture this synergy and ensure the future of North America's birds.