The huge numbers of waders that seasonally
visit Britain and Ireland’s shorelines, grasslands and uplands are
not only some of our most charismatic birds, but are also species
for which we have particular international responsibility.
The UK is especially important for these migrants because of our
temperate winter climate, highly productive estuaries and coasts,
and a strategic location between arctic and sub-arctic breeding
areas to the north and east, and ultimate wintering areas to the
south.
Historically there has been much conservation
effort to identify and conserve internationally important wetlands
for these and other migratory waterbirds, and indeed this was the
original stimulus for what became the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands
in 1971.
Together with the governments of Belgium and
the Netherlands, and many other partners, JNCC has been very
pleased to support the development of an atlas of wader flyways by
Wetlands International (WI). The atlas was launched by
Baroness Young of Old Scone at a recent JNCC event held in London
on 20 May. Preparing this major book has been a massive
effort, being drafted over 11 years by more than 90 experts from
the International Wader Study Group, (WI’s Specialist Group for
waders) and summarising the counts of many thousands of volunteers
in over 100 countries.
The Wader Atlas summarises current
knowledge of all internationally important sites for waders in
Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and sets these against the
flyway distributions of 230 wader populations. Extensive
information is presented on current population sizes and trends,
and tables give much information on 876 key sites in 85
countries.
As with previous flyway atlases for other
waterbirds, the Wader Atlas will be an indispensible
source of information for governmental and other decision-makers,
and will directly assist countries in implementing the Ramsar
Convention, the African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement and other
relevant treaties.
Further details are available at
www.wetlands.org/waderatlas.
(See also http://www.wingsoverwetlands.org/
for data on key wetlands for waders).
David Stroud
Senior Ornithologist
Tel: +44 (0) 1733 866810
Email: