Haribon Foundation joined nongovernment organizations (NGOs) from other countries in Asia for a workshop on monitoring Important Bird Areas (IBAs) organized by Birdlife International Asia Division on September 24 to 26.

BirdLife International is a global partnership of conservation organizations that strives to conserve birds, their habitats and global biodiversity. It works with people toward sustainability in the use of natural resources.

As the Birdlife partner for the Philippines, Haribon was able to share its experiences with the monitoring of IBAs, which are key sites for the conservation of bird habitats. As the Haribon representative for the IBA monitoring workshop, I can say, from firsthand observation, how the Birdlife partnership is helping us in the conservation of birds as well as other wildlife in the Philippines.

There were many things covered during the meetings. First of all, we updated each other on the status of IBAs in each country: whether new ones had been identified, and monitored, and other details. For our part, the Philippines has 117 IBAs, and therefore quite hard to monitor. A few IBAs have been monitored, and the data from these have to be included to the IBA database.

The participants were also updated on the projects and directions that Birdlife is taking for global protection of threatened birds. A few highlights of these would be the listing of threatened IBAs that are in need for protection, which they plan to do under the IBAs in Danger Program. The organization is also introducing IBAs delineated in seas—the so-called Marine IBAs—contrasting with the usual IBAs that are terrestrial and freshwater sites.

We were also trained on how to input IBA monitoring data into the World Bird Database, where all the information could be arranged and turn into a form usable for illustrating to policy-makers and stakeholders of the sites.

What do we get from our partnership with Birdlife International? As somebody who has made friends with the Birdlife Secretariat and the Birdlife Partners from the other countries, I believe the answer lies in the exchange of knowledge and expertise.

Through the IBA monitoring workshop, we were able to share our experiences in bird conservation, gather successful technologies and approaches from other partners, and see our contribution to the bigger picture of global biodiversity conservation.

To attain a global effort for biodiversity conservation is a tough endeavor, but having friends in BirdLife is the first step toward it.