Seabird movements tend to occur across national (territorial water) boundaries as well as in international waters (the high seas). This means that, more than just about any other group of birds, understanding and managing threats to seabirds away from their breeding islands must be a truly international and cooperative effort. BirdLife International recognised this as a priority issue, and the Global Seabird Programme (GSP) was born.

The Global Seabird Programme was initiated in 1997. John Cooper, based at the University of Cape Town at what was then the Avian Demography Unit, was the programme leader. In 2006, the GSP initiated the Albatross Task Force (ATF), intended to be a global network of national teams, working in developing countries with seabird bycatch hotspots. South Africa was the first BirdLife International parter to have an ATF team By 2008, the GSP had grown to the point where centralised coordination was no longer practical and positions for regional coordinators were created. Due to the fact that BirdLife South Africa had the only GSP programme that was well-established with a partner organisation, they host the post of Africa Coordinator, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Thus all the Seabird Division's staff are full-time employees of BirdLife South Africa, but are funded through the GSP.

Aside from the Albatross Task Force work, the Africa Coordinator, Dr Ross Wanless, is responsible for three other work programmes:

• Regional Fisheries Management Organisations
• Marine Important Bird Areas
• National seabird conservation actions