The State of Nepal's Birds 2010 Indicators of Our Changing World

About this book

Language: English

From the preface:

"The State of Nepal’s Birds 2010 (BCN and DNPWC 2011) aims to raise awareness amongst policymakers, the general public and conservation organisations of the plight of Nepal's birds and the responses needed to help secure their conservation.

It is 15 years since the publication of the first assessment of the threat status of Nepal's birds: Threatened Birds of Nepal by the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) and Bird Conservation Nepal (BCN) in 1996.This report was succeeded by The State of Nepal's Birds 2004 published by IUCN Nepal, DNPWC and BCN eight years later. Better documentation on species’ status enabled the latter to be a much more detailed report than the 1996 report. It included an account of the threats to Nepal’s birds, an assessment of national threat status for individual species considered to qualify for IUCN Categories Vulnerable, Endangered and Critically Endangered categories and a comprehensive review of all Endangered and Critically Endangered species.

The generosity of many more bird observers in Nepal in providing their unpublished records has led to The State of Nepal’s Birds 2010 being a more complete assessment of species threat status than was possible previously. One of the most notable changes since the 2004 report is that there are now 16 more species on the threatened list. Other significant and worrying changes are that 21 additional species are considered Critically Endangered and six more Endangered compared to 2004.

Species listed as threatened in The State of Nepal’s Birds 2010 should be treated as priority species for conservation. However, many more bird species are also known to be declining, but were not considered to have reached the level of being nationally threatened.

An important feature of this new report is the Response section, which covers the conservation approaches that BCN, other NGOs, individuals and the Government of Nepal are taking or can take to tackle the threats facing Nepal’s birds.

Limitations of this report and the two previous assessments of Nepal's threatened birds are that not all species have been comprehensively assessed to identify those that might qualify for near-threatened status. In addition, passage migrants and vagrants have been excluded because it was considered that the main threats to these species may lie elsewhere. However, some passage migrants may use important stop-over sites where threats may be high. A new study is currently underway under the auspices of the Zoological Society of London that is considering the threat status of all bird species recorded in Nepal to produce a National Red Data Book of Nepal’s Birds. The work undertaken to produce this report will be used for this more comprehensive review.

Much remains to be understood about the status and distribution of birds in Nepal. Please send  in your bird records so that knowledge of birds in this country can be improved further and documented. This will enable policymakers and the general public to be made aware of the status of Nepal’s birds and lead to the implementation of measures to prevent birds becoming extinct in the country and ensure their conservation."

Customer Reviews