Arctic Migratory Birds Initiative

Date/time: December 4, 10:30-12:00

Room: San Siro 2

Session organizer: Spike Millington, East Asian Australasian Flyways Partnership and Victoria Johnston, Environment Canada

Arctic human societies value migratory birds as sources of food, clothing, and beauty. A variety of migratory bird species fill important ecological niches as both consumers and producers of energy and biomass.Most birds that breed in the Arctic spend the balance of their lives outside of the Arctic. Throughout their global ranges, they face a myriad of challenges that threaten the viability of several populations of arctic breeding sea and shorebirds. It is the goal of the Arctic Migratory Birds Initiative (AMBI) to improve the conservation outcomes of these populations.

The AMBI realizes that such an ambitious goal cannot be realised without the involvement and commitment of people - within and outside of the Arctic - who live, exploit, manage and derive benefits from land and resources in the places that our Arctic birds live throughout their lifecycles. This session aims to facilitate a dialogue among people of diverse backgrounds around the proposed actions that the AMBI will undertake.

Overview of AMBI Flyway workplans

• AMBI Americas Flyway work plan
• AMBI African Eurasian Flyway work plan
• AMBI East Asian Australasian Flyway work plan
• AMBI Circumpolar Flyway work plan

Following a plenary overview of AMBI and its proposed conservation actions, participants will discuss and provide feedback on questions such as:

• what are the implications, both positive and negative, to the proposed AMBI actions on my society or enterprise?
• are there better ways to achieve the same outcomes?
• should additional or alternative partners be involved in specific work plan items? How?
• how could I (my society or my enterprise) advance the implementation of AMBI work plans?

This session will be of interest to:

• indigenous groups, whose perspectives are key to the appropriate development of AMBI's work plans
• industries that use the same land and resources as arctic migratory bird species (e.g. commercial fisheries, resource extraction companies)
• land use planners and land and resource managers
• academics with a special interest in biodiversity conservation/integrated resource management.

Group discussion featuring the following experts

• Victoria Johnston, Environment Canada:  An introduction to the Arctic Migratory Bird Initiative (AMBI)
• Robert Clay, Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network
• Evgeny Syroechkovskiy, All-Russian Institute for Nature Conservation
• Nicola Crockford, BirdLife International
• Rick Lanctot, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
• Grant Gilchrist, Environment Canada

If you are unable to attend this session, but have an interest in this subject and wish to contribute, please fill out the AMBI Congress questionnaire. 

Session theme: Mainstreaming biodiversity: linking ecosystems to society