BC’s Important Bird Areas (IBAs)

By Karen Barry, RPBio., Anne Murray, Peter Davidson, and Krista Englund, BIT

Background and International Scope

The Important Bird Area (IBA) program first started in the 1980’s under BirdLife International, a global partnership of conservation organizations operating in over 170 countries and territories, with the goals of conserving birds, their habitats and global biodiversity, and working with people towards sustainable use of natural resource (http://www.birdlife.org). Since birds know no borders and many travel across multiple continents and oceans during the course of their annual cycles, efforts to conserve birds must frequently be global in scope,
even though planning and actions are often most practical when implemented on a local scale. The IBA program was devised with precisely this in mind – it is a site-based conservation program that spans the entire globe through the coordinated and cooperative activities of the BirdLife partners, which in Canada are Bird Studies Canada and Nature
Canada (BC Nature, an affiliated group, here in British Columbia).

The ultimate aim of the IBA program is to identify, monitor and protect a worldwide network of sites that collectively support a minimum viable population of all of the world’s bird
species. Lofty though this goal may seem, the program has achieved huge successes in the two decades since its inception. As of 2009, over 11,000 sites in nearly 200 countries have been designated as IBAs.

Online directories of all IBAs have been published and have become vital tools for conservation planning. Although the IBA designation itself is not regulatory, IBAs are a centerpiece for policy in some regions, such as the EU Birds Directive legislation in Europe. Being connected to a worldwide network of respected conservation groups can add weight to local conservation efforts as well. For example, an international voice can add significant support for a site in the face of a major threat.

Designation Criteria and IBAs in Canada

A site triggers IBA status if it meets one or more of the following internationally standardized, scientifically defensible criteria:
1) sites that regularly support significant numbers of a globally threatened species (based on the IUCN Red List http://www.iucnredlist.org ; BirdLife is the IUCN Red List Authority for birds)
2) sites that support birds with restricted breeding ranges (e.g., endemic species)
3) sites that support significant congregations of birds (e.g., breeding, wintering, migrating)
4) sites that support biome-restricted assemblages or unique natural communities

These global criteria have also been applied at a national level in some countries, including Canada, in order to address national priorities (see http://www.bsc-eoc.org/iba/ibacriteria.jsp ). In BC’s Important Bird Areas (IBAs) the case of threatened and congregatory species, 1% of the global or biogeographic population was used as the threshold for triggering IBA status. Additional criteria enable IBA status for sites regularly supporting congregations of >20,000 seabirds, shorebirds, waterfowl and other species groups. Area-based thresholds were used for restricted-range species. The category focused on biome-restricted assemblages has not been applied in Canada since this is generally more applicable to tropical and sub-tropical ecosystems.

A nation-wide initiative from 1997 to 2001 culminated in approximately 600 IBAs being designated in Canada, 84 of which are located in BC. In British Columbia, nominating and
reviewing sites was a collaborative process involving Environment Canada – Canadian Wildlife Service, Bird Studies Canada, Nature Canada, BC Nature, BC Field Ornithologists,
and local birders and naturalists, and ran in tandem with similar processes in other provinces. A national IBA database was launched (http://www.ibacanada.ca ), which provides site characteristics, bird, land-use and threat information on each IBA in a standard format, along with interactive mapping tools.

Canada’s top-ranking IBA, in terms of the number of species for which IBA status is triggered, is the Fraser River Estuary IBA, which includes Boundary Bay, Sturgeon Bank, and Roberts Bank. This IBA meets global thresholds for thirteen species: Western and Red-necked Grebes, Trumpeter Swan, Snow Goose, Brant, Northern Pintail, American Wigeon, Mallard, Black-bellied Plover, Western Sandpiper, Dunlin and Glaucous-winged Gull.

Forested areas are currently under represented in the Canadian IBA network, as are species with dispersed habitat needs. Many more sites would likely have met the IBA criteria if sufficient data had existed at the time. It should be noted that IBAs are not the only areas important for birds in the province, country or world. Certain groups of species, like songbirds, are difficult to protect using this model because of their dispersed habitat requirements. Many other sites outside of currently designated IBAs are important for birds, therefore the IBA program must be complemented by other conservation approaches to effectively conserve all species.

Important Bird Areas in BC

Most of BC’s IBAs were designated because of their importance for congregatory species using the Pacific Flyway. Over 60% of our IBAs are marine and coastal sites encompassing open sea, offshore island, estuarine, rocky, mudflat and sandy beach habitats that support internationally or nationally important numbers of breeding, migrating or feeding seabirds, shorebirds, and waterbirds. IBAs in BC’s interior comprise forested, freshwater and grassland sites, designated for waterbird congregations, and other landbirds, many of which are federally-listed Species at Risk. There is wide variability in IBA size in BC, from a few hectares to as much as 10,000 square kilometers.

At least 54 of BC’s IBAs provide habitat for federally-listed Species At Risk. For example, three IBAs (Barkley Sound, Desolation Sound and Nootka Island Banks) were designated because they support >1% of the global population of the globally threatened Marbled Murrelet. There are two IBAs on Vancouver Island which support an endemic subspecies of White–tailed Ptarmigan (Mt. Arrowsmith and Strathcona Provincial Park). In the interior, Douglas Lake Plateau supports globally important numbers of migrating Sandhill Cranes. The Okanagan area has several IBAs that support species at risk like Burrowing Owl, Yellow-breasted Chat and Sage Thrasher.

While approximately 24% of the area within BC’s IBA network is protected in some form (e.g. National Parks, Provincial Parks, Ecological Reserves), many sites are at risk from various habitat impacts such as pollution, habitat loss, human disturbance, introduced species and other pressures. Effective long term conservation of IBAs requires an understanding of factors that threaten birds and their habitat, management of these pressures, local stewardship and public education.

Current Activities in BC

To promote the long term protection of these important sites, BC Nature and Bird Studies Canada initiated a Caretaker Network for BC IBAs, starting in 2006. This network consists of volunteers, individuals and local groups, who live within, or regularly visit a particular IBA. The volunteer Caretakers act as the eyes, ears and hands on the ground, monitoring the birds and their habitats, and conducting other stewardship activities at that IBA. Caretakers also assist by providing regular annual updates on site status and ensuring that the IBA web database is as current and accurate as possible. Caretakers have now been identified for >92% of BC’s IBAs, with only the most remote sites on the west coast of Vancouver Island, Central Coast and northern BC still without a Caretaker.

Most of the bird monitoring at IBAs is conducted through existing programs, such as e-Bird, the BC Breeding Bird Atlas, BC Coastal Waterbird Survey and seabird colony surveys. Data generated from these programs will be linked to the IBA database and will provide valuable information for areas where bird data was previously lacking. A monitoring protocol to regularly assess human use, land-use and habitat change, as well as pressures affecting the sites, is currently being designed. Once implemented, this protocol will feed back into the global system of IBAs and be used as a key reporting tool on the State of the World’s Birds ( http://www.birdlife.org/sowb/ ).

Efforts are underway to increase the amount of IBA area protected as parks, reserves, National Wildlife Areas, Wildlife Management Areas or Wildlife Habitat Areas. For instance, a
marine wildlife area is currently proposed around the Scott Islands IBA and the Boundary Bay IBA has been designated as part of the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network. In addition to legal protection, birds and their habitat can be protected through a variety of stewardship and management activities, such as restoring habitat through invasive plant removal or managing agricultural activities to maintain habitat value for waterfowl. Conservation activities at IBAs reflect the unique circumstances of each site (e.g. size, location, and ownership). Public areas may be conserved by open-space acquisition and by working with land managers, and private lands may be conserved through public-private partnerships such as easements, and through landowner education.

In 2009, with the support of a grant from Mountain Equipment Co-op, BC’s IBA partners BC Nature and Bird Studies Canada initiated a series of outreach sessions for agencies and organizations responsible for land and resource management in BC, in order to raise awareness of the IBA program. To date, we have delivered presentations to over 200 representatives from more than 18 different agencies, including federal agencies (e.g. Transport Canada, Canadian Wildlife Service, Parks Canada, Department of Fisheries and Oceans), provincial agencies (e.g. Ministries of Environment, Agriculture and Lands, and Education, Forests and Range), and non-government groups (e.g. Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Ducks Unlimited, Nature Conservancy of Canada). We have been strongly encouraged by the level of interest in the IBA program and are optimistic that as
more people become aware of IBAs, we can work collectively to conserve IBAs over the long term.

How You Can Help

Our ultimate goal is to significantly increase the protection of IBAs and local stewardship activities so that each site within the network continues to support populations of birds for hich it was designated in perpetuity. The IBA program offers great potential to enhance and buffer existing protection measures. There are many ways to support the IBA program in BC, such as increasing your awareness of the program, using IBA spatial data in planning and management activities, sharing your expertise and data, reviewing site summaries online, or becoming involved with the Caretaker program. We encourage you to contact us to learn more about the IBA program or discuss opportunities to support the program or become more involved (email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) ).

For more information and to access Site Summaries for specific IBAs, please visit http://www.ibacanada.ca.

BioNews Vol 19, No. 4, pp. 13-15