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Project Objectives

 

Other Birds Conservation in Latin America areas:

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    This project seeks to assess systematically priorities for the conservation of resident birds at risk in Latin America. This prioritization goal was stimulated by the simultaneous development of three sets of criteria classifying risk to resident birds in the continent. These were: the Red Data Book Threatened Birds of the Americas (Collar et al. 1992), which was subsequently adjusted following new quantitative criteria for threat (IUCN/SSC 1994) by Collar et al. (1994); the databases (Parker et al. 1996) of Neotropical Birds: Ecology and Conservation (Stotz et al. 1996); and TNC’s Natural Heritage ranking system (TNC 1998). Combining these three major listings provides an inclusive set of all Latin American species considered at all at risk.

    In Nov 1997 a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between TNC’s Wings of the Americas program and the University of Arkansas’ Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST), which has a well-established reputation for the geographic analysis of biological data (Smith and Catanzaro 1996). The MOU established a partnership in the two-year project "Setting Conservation Priorities for Resident Birds at Risk in Latin America". The project was defined to have the following objectives:

• Derive a comprehensive list of birds at risk for Latin America in conjunction with partner NGOs and scientific experts

• Determine their specific national, ecoregional, elevational, and habitat distributions using advanced GIS technology and GAP methodology

• Evaluate their current level of protection within conservation areas

• Identify and prioritize the precise locations where these species at rick could receive greatest benefit through habitat protection efforts by the conservation community

• Distribute products to the entire conservation community, with focus on Latin American conservation partners, in a readily-usable, and upgradable format