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Important Bird Areas Bi-annual Newsletter

An Important Bird Areas newsletter will be published twice a year. The purpose of the newsletter is to inform you about progress made with regard to the IBA Programme.

February 2012

Weekly updates

 Below you will find short news snippets relation to the IBA Programme. Please come and check on a regular basis what the IBA team is up to. The latest news item will always be on top. 

3 March 2012

Western Cape

Dale Wright made a trip up the West Coast this week to conduct an assessment of the Lower Berg River Wetlands Important Bird Area (IBA), He was accompanied by Keith Harrison from the West Coast Bird Club. The Lower Berg River is unprotected and faces numerous threats to its ecological character, many of which stem from impacts outside of the geographic boundaries of the IBA. The assessment will be used as a baseline to begin determining appropriate conservation actions for the site, in partnership with the local stakeholders and community groups of the West Coast. Keith’s work in this regard forms the basis of BirdLife South Africa’s understanding of the issues affecting the IBA, illustrating the importance of our members’ work. Conducting assessment of the existing Western Cape IBAs is an important focus of the regional work programme. Later in the week a positive meeting was held between members of BirdLife South Africa, the City of Cape Town and the Cape Bird Club regarding the False Bay Ecology Park. This interesting three-party agreement around management of the area is a good example of how partnerships are used to drive the work required to conserve critical bird habitats.

Mpumalanga / Free State

Charmaine Uys and Vanessa Stone (WWF-SA) completed another round of initial field assessments for Biodiversity Stewardship in Memel, Free State. This week they assessed 12 573 ha, bringing the total assessed to date to 16 landowners and 22 588 ha.

KwaZulu-Natal

A site visit to Tillietudlem was done by Nick Theron and Daniel Marnewick, and they were accompanied by the farm manager and representatives from EKZN Wildlife. The outline of the Biodiversity Stewardship project was discussed and plans made for the implementation of work over the coming year. The stakeholders are very positive about this project and we are excited about the contribution that the declaration of Tillietudlem as a protected area will make to securing the conservation of important mistbelt grassland habitat for the conservation of biodiversity in this threatened biome.

Gauteng/North West

The Gauteng/North West/Limpopo Forum meeting went extremely well. A range of issues were discussed. Shireen Gould reported on the progress made with the membership system and the plans to handle outstanding issues. Ernst Retief reported on the IBA Programme, bird hides project and the other exciting work BirdLife South Africa is initiating. The clubs then reported on their projects. A number of the birds clubs will be celebrating special anniversaries this year.

22 February 2012

IBA PROGRAMME: NATIONAL
Daniel Marnewick and his team submitted a funding proposal for a national review of the IBA network to the JRS Biodiversity Foundation. Mark Anderson and Daniel continued to meet with business-minded people this week to find ways of covering the IBA Programme core costs.

REGIONAL CONSERVATION: WESTERN CAPE
In the Western Cape, Dale Wright attended his first meeting of the C.A.P.E. implementation committee. C.A.P.E.’s (Cape Action Plan for the Environment) goal is to conserve the region’s biodiversity by a range of stakeholders. The group consists of government environmental agencies and conservation NGOs. Collaborating with the different members of this group will be important for implementing conservation action at the Western Cape IBAs. Dale also attended the launch of WRAP (Weaver Research Africa Project), which is an extension of the Animal Demography Unit’s PHOWN (Photos of Weaver Nests) project that plans to expand this project into Africa by linking with other institutions and citizen scientists across the continent. This week Dr Alan Lee completed his first survey route through the Fynbos on his mammoth cycling research trip across the Western Cape. Interested parties can follow Alan’s progress on his Facebook page “Birds and climate change” and also on his blog.

REGIONAL CONSERVATION: MPUMALANGA/FREE STATE
Charmaine Uys attended the Steenkampsberg Environmental Initiative quarterly meeting in Middelpunt. She met with the reserve manager and senior field ranger of Verloren Valei Nature Reserve for an IBA assessment of the reserve, which is a Ramsar site in the heart of the Steenkampsberg IBA. Seeing Yellow-breasted Pipits and many other ‘specials’ was good reinforcement for why this reserve is so critical for bird conservation. Charmaine also had long, productive discussions with the Endangered Wildlife Trust around the future roles of both NGOs in the Biodiversity Stewardship programme in the region. Charmaine ended the week in Lydenburg at the Mpumalanga Wetland Forum quarterly meeting, held at Gustav Klingbiel Nature Reserve.

REGIONAL CONSERVATION: GAUTENG/ NORTH WEST
Ernst Retief has almost completed the IBA assessments for the Magaliesberg and Witwatersberg IBA. He also started work on the assessment for the Blesbokspruit IBA. The Blesbokspruit IBA has  numerous threats (including a rising water level, deteriorating water quality, reed encroachment, illegal roads and pipelines) and careful thought will be given as to how to address these threats.

IBA WEB PAGES
Ernst Retief has been working on the IBA webpages. BirdLife South Africa’s regional conservation managers will soon be populating the pages with information about the country’s IBAs. The Google Earth map of the IBA boundaries can be viewed here.

13 February 2012

REGIONAL CONSERVATION: WESTERN CAPE
This past week Dale Wright attended his first Western Cape Bird Club Forum meeting, providing him the opportunity to meet many of the key people involved in bird conservation in the Western Cape and get up to speed on some of the important conservation issues. The forum will no doubt provide a strong resource and support base for Dale’s work in the Province. Dale also travelled to the BirdLife South Africa head office in Johannesburg, where he met other members of the organization and finalised the regional work priorities for the year ahead with Daniel Marnewick. Upon returning to the Western Cape, a very positive meeting was held with the Nature Conservation Corporation (NCC), as well Dave Whitelaw and Vernon Head of the Cape Bird Club. BirdLife South Africa will be entering into a partnership with NCC, which will provide assistance with a pilot project at the False Bay Ecology Park Important Bird Area. The aim of the project is to collate existing information on the needs of the area and produce a fundraising document which BirdLife South Africa can use to mobilise corporate funding. If successful this initiative could pave the way for similar corporate sponsorship projects in other IBAs around the country.

REGIONAL CONSERVATON: GAUTENG/NORTH WEST
Ernst Retief completed the first draft of the Important Bird Area Assessment for the Magaliesberg and Witwatersberg IBA. This is an IBA with a number of key species, of which Cape Vulture is the most important. This species and the area in general is facing a number of threats of which housing developments are the most serious. It is clear that the vulture restaurants in the area are making a massive contribution towards the conservation of this species. The report will soon be forwarded to the Gauteng/ North West Conservation Committee and other relevant parties for comments and then submitted to the IBA Steering Committee for final approval. A number of important proposals have been made in the document that will be considered for implementation after the assessment report has been approved.
The testing of the harness and telemetry device on the captive Secretarybird at the Rhino and Lion Park is going very well. The bird has adapted well to the harness. Close inspections showed no abrasions or other negative effects on the bird. The tracker will be removed from the bird next week.

REGIONAL CONSERVATION: MPUMALANGA/FREE STATE
Charmaine Uys teamed up with Vanessa Stone and Angus Burns (WWF-SA), Ian Little and Glenn Ramke (EWT), and Dave and Belinda Hayter (Free State provincial nature conservation) for Biodiversity Stewardship field assessments in Memel. Over the course of the week, the team assessed 10 015 ha bordering Seekoeivlei Nature Reserve and extending out towards Botha’s Pass and Muller’s Pass. The objectives of these field assessments are to ground-truth results of the desktop assessment, determine the condition of the veld, gather information from the landowners on their properties and its management, and determine the landowners’ needs and expectations of the Biodiversity Stewardship Programme.

CATA COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Nick Theron held a report back workshop this week with the ecotourism stakeholders in Cata. Twenty stakeholders attended the workshop where we reported back on all activities and the expenditure to date. A session was also held to discuss the current tourism organisational structure and how this can be improved and better managed in the future. The map for the Cata walking trails has been completed and has been sent to Woema, the design company who won the tender to design a brochure with information we have prepared for the trails. An ecotourism and bird guide training course has also been finalised and will be presented to the community by Duncan Pritchard at the end of February.