Mainstreaming conservation of migratory soaring birds into development sectors in the Rift Valley/Red Sea Flyway

The Rift Valley/Red Sea (RV/RS) flyway is the second most important flyway for migratory soaring birds (MSBs) in the world, with over 1.5 million birds of 37 species, using this corridor between their breeding grounds in... [ view full abstract ]

The Rift Valley/Red Sea (RV/RS) flyway is the second most important flyway for migratory soaring birds (MSBs) in the world, with over 1.5 million birds of 37 species, using this corridor between their breeding grounds in Europe and West Asia and wintering areas in Africa each year. Yet it is during migration that MSBs experience the most physiologically stressing moment, 50-100% of some species have their regional or global populations pass along the route and through the flyway bottlenecks in space of just a few weeks.
During the migration, birds encounter many risks. In a number of countries within the RV/RS region the MSBs face risks which primarily emanate from various productive sectors including hunting, energy, waste management and agriculture. The risks posed by human development need to be minimized, and a number of countries within the region as well as multilateral environmental governance tools and instruments are interested in addressing this challenge.
BirdLife has been employing a mainstreaming approach for sectors which pose the greatest threat to the MSBs as an intervention strategy. As such, the MSBs conservation considerations are being mainstreamed into agriculture, hunting, energy and waste management sectors in 11 countries within the RV/RS flyway. The promotion of MSBs to add value to the ecotourism products is also taking place in the region.
Whereas mainstreaming can take a variety of dimensions, BirdLife has been developing a suite of tools as a means through which mainstreaming could be achieved. These range from decision support tools on siting renewable energy installations – such as the sensitivity mapping tool, guidelines for Environmental Impact Assessment, guidance tools on avoiding agro-chemical poisoning and sustainable farming approaches and shut down on demand criteria for mitigating impact on operating wind power installations. Others include guidance on pre- and post-construction assessments of wind farms and code of best practice in hunting. Catalysing enforcement of legislation to protect MSBs has also been used as a means to combat indiscriminate hunting of birds especially in the Middle East countries.