TWBF's First Webinar Series Highlights Major Topics in International Bird Conservation

By Scott Pursner

In November, the Taiwan Wild Bird Federation hosted the "Major Topics in International Bird Conservation" webinar series. It was created in coordination with the Taiwan Endemic Species Research Institute and with the support of the Forestry Bureau. These sessions were organized to build on the publication of Taiwan's first national bird report, the State of Taiwan's Birds 2020, and discuss its content with wider audiences. Four of the six webinars featured international scholars and experts from a range of fields. Participants were able to fully engage with the speakers about their topics as they were held in English with simultaneous Mandarin translation. Below is a brief introduction to the speakers and their topics.

11/9/2021 Mrs. Susan Bonfield, Environment for the Americas
World Migratory Bird Day: Uniting Our Voices for Bird Conservation

Susan Bonfield has been working in conservation and environmental education for over 30 years. In 2007, she founded Environment for the Americas, an NGO built on the foundation of its keystone education program, World Migratory Bird Day. The EFTA now serves as a critical partner in the development and execution of this global celebration of bird migration. It also does international conservation education and research programs, linking and liaising with numerous stakeholders such as researchers and educators. During her talk, Mrs. Bonfield discussed how every day should be a celebration of birds and the people they connect. There was also a lively exchange between her, TWBF's president Dr. Fang Woei-horng, and the Raptor Research Group of Taiwan president Dr. Lin Si-min. The three discussed environmental education and how hopefully the EFTA can work more closely with groups and interested individuals in Taiwan. Minsheng Elementary School in southern Taiwan's Pingtung was mentioned as a school which had already participated in certain WMBD activities. Mrs. Bonfield hoped such activities could increase.

11/11/21 Dr. Richard Fuller, University of Queensland
Conserving Migratory Shorebirds Along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway

Dr. Fuller's work at the University of Queensland is interdisciplinary in nature, focusing on human nature interactions, how interactions can be improved, and how these relationships might lead to solutions to the current biodiversity crisis. His lab, the Fuller Lab, works on pure and applied topics in biodiversity and conservation, spanning migration ecology, conservation planning and urban ecology. During his talk, Dr. Fuller focused on discussing the East AsianAustralasian Flyway, the world's largest and most threatened migratory bird superhighway. It is also the flyway Taiwan is part of. He shared his recent work and noted how recent studies have shed light on just how little is known about the migration routes of certain species and what work needs to be done to not just protect wintering and breeding grounds, but also important stopover sites like those in Taiwan. Dr. Fuller also discussed the necessity of having all parts of the flyway working together in order for migratory bird conservation to be successful.

11/12/21 Dr. Petr Voříšek, Czech Society of Ornithology
Monitoring Birds in Europe: Approaches, Results, and Challenges

Dr. Voříšek has worked for the Czech Society of Ornithology since 1996. He has also served, at different times, as director and coordinator of the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme. The PECMBS aims to use common birds as indicators of the state of nature via large-scale and long-term monitoring data on changes in breeding populations across Europe. He has also been heavily involved in coordination of 2nd European Breeding Bird Atlas. During his talk, Dr. Voříšek shared his experiences from coordinating the two large-scale projects. He also described how he and his team organized bird monitoring surveys in diverse European conditions. In his presentation, he showed the results of recent monitoring work and explained how it contributed to nature conservation and policy at both the national and international level. A very interesting discussion later in the session took place between him and Jerome Chie-Jen Ko. Ko serves as project leader of the Taiwan Biodiversity Network (an open data application platform for wildlife distribution data), as well as data analyst of the Taiwan Breeding Bird Survey (a national citizen science bird monitoring project since 2009). The two were able to share experiences and exchange thoughts on common bird monitoring.

11/30/21 Dr. Tatsuya Amano, University of Queensland
Sharing and Using Evidence of Conservation in a Multilingual World

Dr. Amano works on a range of topics but is particularly committed to tackling knowledge gaps which negatively affect biodiversity conservation. He focuses on three areas: identifying gaps in existing information and their drivers, overcoming information gaps with modelling approaches, and bridging the research-implementation gap. In 2019 he launched the translaTe website, which incorporates these aspects to work towards understanding and overcoming the consequences of language barriers in biodiversity conservation. During his presentation, Dr. Amano highlighted how there are over 7,000 languages in the world yet for scientific study, English is the dominant language by far. This is limiting in two ways. The first is that articles written in other languages will not be considered if they are not in English. On the other hand, if studies are done only in English, non-English speakers may be unable to understand them unless they are translated into their own languages. It is a complex issue, but one which is now taking more prevalence as the global community works to come together to combat the threats of climate change and biodiversity loss.

More on the State of Taiwan's Birds 2020 Report

The State of Taiwan's Birds 2020 report is the first comprehensive assessment of the conservation status of Taiwan's bird species. Government, academia, and civil society came together to create this important milestone in Taiwan's bird conservation work. It integrates data collected through long-term citizen science projects and scientific studies, providing an in-depth analysis of overall species population trends, the status of specific bird groups, current threats, and conservation strategies and actions. It is hoped that this report can enable readers to better understand the current situation faced by Taiwan's birds and contribute to furthering the discussions surrounding global bird conservation efforts.