Migratory soaring birds website takes off
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A new interactive website will give information on the distribution of soaring bird species along the Rift Valley/Red Sea flyway as they migrate.
The BirdLife Migratory Soaring Birds project (MSB) has launched the web tool to help protect migratory soaring birds along the major migration flyway. This innovative interactive website has been designed to provide developers, planning authorities and other interested persons access to information on the distribution of soaring bird species along the Rift Valley/Red Sea flyway. This can help to inform decisions on the safe siting of new developments, such as wind farms, ensuring that negative impacts on this important migration route are minimised.
The Rift Valley/Red Sea Flyway hosts the migration of over two million soaring birds through the region, with huge flocks numbering tens of thousands migrating from wintering grounds in Africa to breeding grounds in Europe and Central Asia and vice versa, along the second biggest flyway in the world. This area is also subject to huge development pressures, as increased demands for energy, food supply, and tourism lead to significant changes in land use, and generate the need for increased waste management. Indiscriminate hunting and illegal killing of birds is widespread. This creates an increasingly inhospitable environment for large migrating birds such as storks and raptors, and has the potential to affect their populations on all three continents.
The new MSB Sensitivity Mapping Tool is not intended to replace Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) but rather to inform and complement them. The website tool was funded by the Migratory Soaring Birds project and is available on the project’s website.
The BirdLife Migratory Soaring Birds project (MSB) has launched the web tool to help protect migratory soaring birds along the major migration flyway. This innovative interactive website has been designed to provide developers, planning authorities and other interested persons access to information on the distribution of soaring bird species along the Rift Valley/Red Sea flyway. This can help to inform decisions on the safe siting of new developments, such as wind farms, ensuring that negative impacts on this important migration route are minimised.
The Rift Valley/Red Sea Flyway hosts the migration of over two million soaring birds through the region, with huge flocks numbering tens of thousands migrating from wintering grounds in Africa to breeding grounds in Europe and Central Asia and vice versa, along the second biggest flyway in the world. This area is also subject to huge development pressures, as increased demands for energy, food supply, and tourism lead to significant changes in land use, and generate the need for increased waste management. Indiscriminate hunting and illegal killing of birds is widespread. This creates an increasingly inhospitable environment for large migrating birds such as storks and raptors, and has the potential to affect their populations on all three continents.
The new MSB Sensitivity Mapping Tool is not intended to replace Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) but rather to inform and complement them. The website tool was funded by the Migratory Soaring Birds project and is available on the project’s website.
