The Important Bird Areas Globally
The Important Bird Areas (IBA) Program is part of a worldwide program overseen by National Audubon and BirdLife International.
IBA Program goals are to:
1) identify, document, and recognize the most important areas for birds,
2) engage people in citizen-science and conservation projects, and
3) partner with others to bring resources to IBAs in need of conservation. The program is involved in 178 countries and has indentified over 8000 areas since its inception in 1985.
The Important Bird Areas Program in Arizona
The Important Bird Areas Program is administered by two organizations, Tucson Audubon and Audubon Arizona (the state office the National Audubon Society). We share in the accomplishment of the program’s goals. Tucson Audubon has been a key organization in this program’s administration since its beginning, with Audubon’s leadership in 2001. Audubon Arizona and Tucson Audubon began jointly running the program in 2005 and continue to work to together administering the program.
The goals of the Arizona Important Bird Areas (IBA) Program are to:
- Identify, document, and recognize the most critical areas for birds in Arizona, our IBAs,
- Conduct science-based inventory and monitoring of birds and involve citizens & professionals in these and other cooperative projects at IBAs, our AZ IBA Avian Science Initiative. We use this data to help identify IBAs in Arizona, assess habitat condition, assist site management, and to advance the conservation and protection of these areas.
- Work with partners to protect, conserve, and enhance avian habitat at priority IBAs across Arizona.
*Tucson Audubon takes the lead for the Arizona IBA Avian Science Initiative for the program.
*Audubon Arizona takes the lead for the identification and recognition of IBAs in Arizona.
*We both work on issues, management, partnerships, and advocacy related to the conservation and protection of IBAs in Arizona.
The Future
Our work is critical because many key sites hang in the balance between conservation/protection or development and habitat loss. We continue to seek additional financial resources so that we can expand our time to pro-active conservation outreach, IBA protection, while maintaining and improving our extensive avian science program. This would allow us to bring forth to the various publics and managers our extensive bird population information from our survey efforts, combined with ecological information and human community benefits, and deliver this information to the people who could be most influential in our site conservation efforts. These are the efforts needed to achieve protection for our most threatened special bird and wildlife areas, like the Lower San Pedro River, Patagonia/Santa Rita Mountain area, the Santa Cruz River, and the Sabino/Tanque Verde watershed basin.
Funding
We receive grant funding and private donations to fund our program. The Arizona Bird Conservation Initiative of the Arizona Game and Fish Department, has provided grant funding for the IBA Program in Arizona since 2003. They have continued their major support of the program to present. We do require additional funds to fully fund the program, and grant sources have varied from year to year.
