The State of Australia’s Birds 2010
Since 2003, Birds Australia has produced an annual State of Australia's Birds (SOAB) report. The reports collate and disseminate information on trends in bird populations to inform Australians of the status of their birds and help bring about improved understanding and better management of the land for birds and other biota. They also provide feedback to the dedicated thousands who volunteer their time and skills to monitor birds.
This year’s report is titled The State of Australia's Birds 2010 - Islands and Birds and was compiled by Julie Kirkwood and James O'Connor.
The report features articles on a small number of Australia’s precious islands, but it is only a snapshot of the situation, as more than 8300 islands occur within Australia’s jurisdiction. Indeed, only a small number of these islands are ever visited regularly by people who record biological data, and precious little is known about most of them. We are left to make inferences about what is happening on those unknown islands from what is happening on the few we have studied.
Nevertheless, some distinct themes emerge from the articles in this report: a high level of endemism means islands represent a critical biodiversity ark; even small increments of climate change-induced sea-level rise will have grave consequences for low-lying islands; and invasive species have already caused widespread devastation of many islands’ biological resources and ecological processes, and continue to do so at an alarming rate.
We tend to know much more about islands inhabited by humans, of course, and the processes on inhabited islands are likely to be distinct. Patterns of invasion of islands by novel species, for example, are bound to be heavily influenced by human habitation: by contrast, climate change and sea-level rise will affect any island on the basis of its physical situation.
Opportunities for mitigation, too, may depend on whether an island is inhabited. For instance, most examples of successful eradications and reintroductions have, so far, come from uninhabited islands, although there are some notable exceptions.
While we may know little about many of our islands, what we do know is that, by their nature, they constitute a unique and precious biological resource; and that, while they are extremely vulnerable to degradation and extinctions, they also represent unique opportunities for providing real and effective conservation measures for the protection of a large proportion of our natural heritage.
To read the report, or learn more about The State of Australia’s Birds reports, visit www.birdsaustralia.com.au/soab/state-of-australias-birds.html
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