The 3 most important forests for birds

Forests the world over are endangered

Seeing the good for the trees:  Global assessment identifies world's most important wildlife forests
December 2011. As the world tightens its economic belt, resources to address the world's growing environmental problems are becoming increasingly limited. These reducing resources means the ability to establish the utmost conservation priorities is more important than ever to achieve the greatest returns for the investment.

Hawaii, Palau, and the tropical African islands of São Tomé & Príncipe
A new report - published in the journal PLoS ONE - identifies those forests that appear to be the most important for bird species, and are in most urgent need of conservation. The top three areas, according to the assessment, are: the forests of Hawaii; Palau in the Pacific; and the forests of the tropical African islands of São Tomé, Príncipe and Annobón.

The coastal and mountain forests of South America also scored particularly highly. Areas like the Amazon basin, which support large numbers of species, often scored lower because the species present there still have very large global ranges.

The authors of the report from RSPB and BirdLife International used species distributions and forest cover from satellite imagery to estimate the contribution that 25 square-kilometre blocks of forest make toward conserving the world's birds. By combining this information with rates of forest clearance (mainly logging), the most important forests for conservation were identified.

Around 6000 species of the world's birds (60 per cent) are dependent to a considerable extent on forests, and some of these are the most threatened species on earth.

Graeme Buchanan, who is an RSPB conservation scientist, is the paper's lead author. He said: "More birds are dependent on forests than any other habitat. Our analysis makes an objective assessment of the importance of every patch of forest on the globe for birds. We hope our report is used alongside other information to guide investment to those areas in most urgent need of conservation management.

"This is a particularly timely analysis, because the world's governments have recently agreed through the to increase the global coverage of protected areas, through the Convention on Biodiversity. Legal protection is one method by which areas could be safeguarded, and our analysis is a contribution towards deciding where new protected areas would have the greatest impact."