Australia's National Shorebird Monitoring Program
The Shorebird 2020 Program is raising awareness of how incredible shorebirds are, and actively engaging the community to participate in gathering information needed to conserve shorebirds. In the short term, the destruction of tidal ecosystems will need to be stopped, and our program is designed to strengthen the case for protecting these important habitats. In the long term, there will be a need to mitigate against the likely effects of climate change on a species that travels across the entire range of latitudes where impacts are likely. The identification and protection of critical areas for shorebirds will need to continue in order to guard
against the potential threats associated with habitats in close proximity to nearly half the human population. Here in Australia, the place where these birds grow up and spend most of their lives, continued monitoring is necessary to inform the best management practice to maintain shorebird populations. We believe that we can help secure a brighter future for these remarkable birds by educating stakeholders, gathering information on how and why shorebird populations are changing, and working to grow the community of people who care about shorebirds.
"In order to conserve shorebirds it is critical that we understand what factors are affecting their declining populations, and define the impact of different activities throughout the Flyway. As home to many visiting migratory shorebird species, Australia is well placed to uncover significant population changes by implementing this comprehensive monitoring program."
The Shorebird 2020 program aims to reinvigorate and coordinate national shorebird population monitoring in Australia. We need to conduct annual counts at over 150 key shorebird areas in order to detect national population trends. We also hope to be able to discover what is driving any population changes, both locally and throughout Australia. If you are interested in participating in our annual National shorebird counts go to our Volunteering section.
The Shorebirds 2020 project is currently supported through an Australian Government Caring For Our Country Grant.
