Important Bird Areas In Uganda Status and Trends 2008

The production of this status and trend report is the first in the assessment of progress on conservation efforts in IBAs in Uganda since the production of the IBA directory in 2001. It is hoped that the production of this report shall contribute immensely in the conservation of species, sites and habitats. This report acts as a useful guiding tool to the decision makers, management authorities and conservation NGOs. The report is expected to benefit the
Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) reporting processes of the country since it provides trends in both species and habitats for protected and non protected areas. Important Bird Areas in Uganda were identified using standard criteria and guidelines developed by Birdlife International (Fishpool, 1997). Uganda has 33 IBAs comprising of National Parks (Protected Areas),
Forest Reserves, Wetlands/ Ramsar sites and land under private ownership. A number of national IBA programs including prioritization of sites and conservation efforts, development of conservation projects and production of a National IBA Conservation Strategy have been done. Major recommendations from all these processes highlighted monitoring as the prime activity to guide the process of saving species, sites and habitats. Through various meetings and consultations, a global IBA monitoring framework was produced by BirdLife International. It is from this exercise that a monitoring framework for Uganda was adopted and used as a major tool for production of this document. This report contains assessments from 24 out of the 33 IBAs in Uganda.