Flyways Beyond Migratory Pathways:The Case of Waterbird Conservation

For almost a century, the term ‘flyways’ has been used to order relations over time and space. It has been used to coordinate scientific research and communication as well as monitoring and management efforts for waterbird conservation. In this article, we revisit the concept of ‘boundary object’ (Star and Griesemer 1989) to investigate how this term ‘flyways’ has been central to common efforts while also having multiple meanings for the actors it connects. The article discusses both contemporary and historical achievements of the term by analysing its underlying knowledge infrastructure. We account for the complex assemblages of social, material, natural, and technical systems that shape how the term ‘flyway’ has been functioning as a boundary object and how this has changed over time. By discussing how the term ‘flyways’ as a boundary object and its underlying knowledge infrastructure shape each other, we empower the actors to define, visualise, communicate, and imagine flyways in more purposeful ways. Our analysis contributes to the literature on boundary objects and knowledge infrastructures by expanding their original definitions, arguing for a co-productive relation between them.</p

A global threats overview for Numeniini populations: synthesising expert knowledge for a group of declining migratory birds

The Numeniini is a tribe of thirteen wader species (Scolopacidae, Charadriiformes) of which seven are near-threatened or globally threatened, including two critically endangered. To help inform conservation management and policy responses, we present the results of an expert assessment of the threats that members of this taxonomic group face across migratory flyways. Most threats are increasing in intensity, particularly in non-breeding areas, where habitat loss resulting from residential and commercial development, aquaculture, mining, transport, disturbance, problematic invasive species, pollution and climate change were regarded as having the greatest detrimental impact. Fewer threats (mining, disturbance, problematic native species and climate change) were identified as widely affecting breeding areas. Numeniini populations face the greatest number of non-breeding threats in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, especially those associated with coastal reclamation; related threats were also identified across the Central and Atlantic Americas, and East Atlantic flyways. Threats on the breeding grounds were greatest in Central and Atlantic Americas, East Atlantic and West Asian flyways. Three priority actions were associated with monitoring and research: to monitor breeding population trends (which for species breeding in remote areas may best be achieved through surveys at key non-breeding sites), to deploy tracking technologies to identify migratory connectivity, and to monitor land-cover change across breeding and non-breeding areas. Two priority actions were focused on conservation and policy responses: to identify and effectively protect key non-breeding sites across all flyways (particularly in the East Asian - Australasian Flyway), and to implement successful conservation interventions at a sufficient scale across human-dominated landscapes for species’ recovery to be achieved. If implemented urgently, these measures in combination have the potential to alter the current population declines of many Numeniini species and provide a template for the conservation of other groups of threatened species

The Slender-billed Curlew Numenius tenuirostris in Africa

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