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Adopt an Important Bird Area

January 25, 2010
Adopt an Important Bird Area

Important Bird Area

The Important Bird Areas (IBA) Program is an international bird conservation program being implemented on every continent, with 48 states participating in the United States. The aim of the program is to identify a network of sites that are essential for sustaining naturally occurring populations of bird species, and to protect or manage these sites for the long-term conservation of birds, other wildlife, and their habitats. For a site to be recognized as an IBA it must meet criteria based on bird concentrations, threatened species, or species assemblages representative of priority habitats.

The Virginia IBA Program was initiated in 2002 and has been making great progress toward greater protection of our state’s vulnerable bird species. IBA identification in Virginia has produced 20 IBAs (as of November 2009) that represent our state’s very best bird habitat. It’s now time to work to protect these areas and you can help!

Local community members can play a vital role in furthering the goals of the IBA program. Through the Adopt an IBA initiative, a local group (such as an Audubon chapter, bird club, school group, etc.) adopts an IBA and participates as a group to further conservation, monitoring, or advocacy efforts on the site. Involvement can include organizing a monitoring effort, clean-up day, education program, or habitat improvement project or advocating for the IBA in the political arena. Adopting an IBA can help in the conservation of the site by raising awareness about the importance of the site and building a local group of constituents that care about it.

The IBA Adoption Group Guidelines can be downloaded here » 84 KB MS Word® Doc.

Please note that it may be possible to receive a Virginia Society of Ornithology Conservation Grant to help support IBA Adoption efforts. Please visit the VSO Conservation Commiittee page for more information.

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