New project on climate resilience for East Atlantic Flyway approved

The Wadden Sea Flyway Initiative received 10-month funding from the German International Climate Initiative (IKI) for the project ‘Climate Resilience for Critical Sites for Migratory Birds and People along the East Atlantic Flyway’.

Migratory birds are declining all around the globe. The pressures faced by waterbirds along the East Atlantic Flyway are manifold and experts agree that most of these threats are likely to become more pronounced in the coming decades, linked to the impact of climate change on coastal wetlands and increasing anthropogenic activities in coastal zones. Adequate management and policing to address key pressures is often lacking, partly due to a lack of understanding of what is driving population declines.

As part of the Wadden Sea Flyway Initiative, the new climate-resilient flyway project aims to improve conditions for migratory birds at a flyway-scale through collaborations with 14 local and international partners from eleven countries along the East Atlantic Flyway. Project activities are aimed at increasing local capacities in key sites in Mauritania, Senegal, and Guinea Bissau to assess drivers of population changes and explore how these can be better addressed through management, policies or livelihood developments. Collaborations with partners from additional project countries, from Morocco to South Africa, ensure strengthening the flyway network and that first steps are being taken to integrate project results into a wider context.

Since 2008, the German government has been promoting climate action and biodiversity conservation in the Global South through the International Climate Initiative.