To address the unprecedented decline of migratory birds across the Americas, conservation practitioners must resolve where to focus their efforts to supply the best advantages. Colombia boasts the best bird diversity on Earth, and habitats across the country are home to lots of of migratory species. To provide conservationists with information to make these decisions, the National Audubon Society and partners have developed Alas Seguras (Safe Wings), a call support system that helps users create custom maps of the necessary places for migratory birds and areas where investments in bird conservation also can profit ecosystems and folks.
The first phase of Alas Seguras has focused on Colombia. In partnership with BirdLife International, Calidris, Humboldt Institute, and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, staff from across Audubon have created a tool that features information on migratory birds, ecosystem types, forest structure, water availability, land use, and social and political boundaries which are relevant to bird conservation in Colombia. This tool helps provide specific information concerning the places which are necessary for migratory birds.
Specifically, the tool focuses on 4 forms of conservation actions: bird-friendly agriculture, bird-friendly ranching, bird-friendly communities, and establishing and managing protected areas. Each of those conservation actions has its own module within the tool. Within each module, users can mix layers to search out probably the most suitable places for a conservation motion. Then, other areas of interest (akin to National Parks, Important Bird Areas, Key Biodiversity Areas, or political boundaries) will be overlaid on the maps to supply more detailed information. With this tool, users can walk through a technique of identifying broad-scale priority landscapes for migratory birds after which match this information with finer scale regional and native information to tell on-the-ground conservation actions.
The tool has already been applied to tell work by the Audubon Americas team. The team was recently approached by a partner who was thinking about using carbon credits to support sustainable ranching activities. Using the tool, the Audubon Americas team assessed the potential conservation actions in areas suitable for carbon credits to contribute to migratory bird conservation. The information suggested several specific areas where these actions may gain advantage migratory birds, and the team was capable of overlay other spatial information to assist assess the feasibility of contacting landowners in these areas. Using this information, the team has decided to proceed pursuing this chance to mix carbon credits, sustainable ranching, and bird conservation.
“Alas Seguras will help us develop innovative approaches to conservation and protect migratory birds that travel throughout the hemisphere,” explains Marci Eggers, vice chairman for conservation, Audubon Americas, “and looking forward, this effort in Colombia provides a model that we can scale up and apply to bird conservation across Latin America.”
Alas Seguras is funded by a grant through NASA’s Earth Science Applied Sciences, Ecological Conservation Program. This program works with end users to empower communities to make use of NASA data to handle challenges in ecological conservation, water resources, health and air quality and other areas. The online tool is built using the Esri ArcGIS platform, leveraging Audubon’s migratory bird models alongside NASA earth remark data hosted in ArcGIS. Esri Business Partner, GreenInfo Network, led the product development, enabling the transformation of distributed datasets right into a tool for data-driven decisions.
Excitingly, the roll out of Alas Seguras in Colombia is barely the start. With additional support from NASA for the following 4 years, Audubon will expand this tool to other countries in Latin America and include detailed information concerning the projected impacts of climate change on resident and migratory birds. This information shall be a critical component of Audubon’s work on regenerative agriculture, coastal resilience, and subnational protected areas which are designed to secure a greater future for birds and folks.