Twice a year, 50 million migratory waterbirds of more than 210 species travel thousands of miles between their breeding ground in the Northern Hemisphere and wintering grounds in the Southern Hemisphere. The routes that migratory waterbirds traverse annually on a regular, seasonal basis are known as flyways. The East Asian-Australasian Flyway (EAA Flyway) is one of the nine major flyways in the world.
The EAA Flyway covers 22 countries, stretches from Russian Far East and Alaska, southwards through East Asia and Southeast Asia to Australia and New Zealand. Because no single site or country can conserve all the migratory waterbirds in the Flyway, adopted in the list of the World Summit on Sustainable Development as a Type II initiative and became a Ramsar Initiative in 2005, and the East Asian-Australasian Flyway Partnership was launched on 6 November, 2006. The EAAFP aims to conserve migratory waterbirds, their habitats and the livelihood of people dependent upon the wetlands in the flyway.
At present, there are 39 partners, comprising 18 national governments, six Inter-Governmental Organizations, 13 international Non-governmental Organizations, one International organization, and one international Private Enterprise. This is a unique form of collaboration all sectors can work together and exchange knowledge at the same level. EAAFP provides a flyway-wide framework to promote dialogue, cooperation and collaboration among a range of stakeholders, such as governments, site managers, scientists, NGOs, educators, private companies and local communities.
To ensure that the internationally important sites are sustainably managed to support the long-term survival of different species, a “Flyway Site Network” was established. Over 1,000 sites of internationally important sites were identified, and working with government Partners who can designate the “Flyway Network Site (FNS)”, we have 148 sites in this network. The government and site managers play a key role in safeguarding these sites. Under the Flyway Site Network Sister Site Agreements, sites in different countries can pair up, to enhance capacity building, information, and experience exchange with each other.
Each species of migratory waterbirds has different needs in lifestyles, diet, habitats which may change in different seasons. We need scientists and expertise to collaborates to enhance the knowledge of these different species and suggest effective conservation measures accordingly. Before the launch of the EAAFP, there were already networks on different groups of waterbirds with long-term and international collaboration on shorebirds, ducks and cranes.
These networks later joined EAAFP and became the Shorebird Working Group, Duck Working Group, Crane Working Group and Seabird Working Group. To further address other flyway-wide issues, Working Groups of CEPA (Communication, Education, Participation and Awareness), Avian Influenza were formed. Under the EAAFP, Task Forces were formed to address species- or issue-specific conservation issues. For example, Spoon-billed Sandpiper Task Force focuses on saving the Spoon-billed Sandpiper, Task Force of Yellow Sea Ecoregion promotes the conservation actions in the region.
Priority Species for conservation
Four species of special concern are highlighted:
Spoon-billed Sandpiper (Calidris pygmaea)
Black-faced Spoonbill (Platalea minor)
Far Eastern Curlew (Numenius madagascariensis) * note: in Australia, Eastern Curlew is more commonly used.
Bar-tailed Godwit (Limosa lapponica)
Collaboration Stories
Spoon-billed Sandpiper, star of EAA Flyway
When talking about the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, the Spoon-billed Sandpiper (SBS), nick-named “Spoony”, is no doubt a “celebrity”. Because of its rarity, bird watchers from all over the world came to the sites in particular seasons to watch it; Because of its Critically Endangered status, efforts from all over the world join in to save it from the brink of extinction. It was back in the early 2000s that the scientists had solid evidence of the drastic decline that 90% of the population of this small bird was gone. Thus, SBS Recovery Team was initiated, which then joined the EAAFP and evolved to a species Task Force (SBS TF). Maybe it is a species representing the most substantial joint conservation effort in terms of countries (Russian Federation, Japan, People’s Democratic Republic of Korea, Republic of Korea, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh and India) and several organizations and funding for on-site conservation.
In order to understand more about the migratory route of SBS, in 2016 leading experts from the SBS TF and the UK deployed tracking devices on SBS with the smallest ever satellite tag invented. Low survival rate of chicks of SBS is one of the factors that the population could not recover well. Therefore, the headstarting programme has been established. The idea is to collect eggs from the wild, hen hatch and hand-raise the chicks in captivity until the chicks are at fledging age, which would be released back to the wild. Since 2012, over 180 headstarted birds were released. It was suggested by scientific modeling that the programme contributed to a 3% increase in the population.
Black-faced Spoonbill, the most successful conservation example of EAA Flyway
In the early 1990s, there were only a few hundreds of Black-faced Spoonbill (BFS)known to the world, thus being listed as Endangered in the IUCN Red List. What has been done to boost the population from a small population to nearly 5,000 individuals in about 30 years’ time? Knowing this species mainly distributed in East Asia, with breeding grounds along Asian coast and west coast of Korean Peninsular, while wintering mainly parts of Asian coast and Japan, the first meeting convened for conservation Black-faced Spoonbill was held in 1994. With this international team, widespread awareness-raising and public education programme was established, an inventory of Importance sites was compiled, the breeding ground study was conducted. Satellite-tracking work to understand the migratory routes of the species was applied for the first time for the first time between 1997 and 1999. BFS recovery has been demonstrated as one of the most successful citizen science programmes in the field of bird conservation in the EAA Flyway.
Far Eastern Curlew, the best story of sites in the flyway are interlinked
Far Eastern Curlew, or Eastern Curlew in Australia, is the largest migratory shorebird endemic in EAA Flyway. The bird has a wide distribution range, with breeding grounds lies in the tundra in Siberia and roughly three-quarters of the population spends the non-breeding season in coastal areas in Australia. Researchers found that the drastic population decline (decrease by 80% of the population in 30 years) may relate to the rapid habitat loss in Northeast Asia. Not being properly fueled up during their long migration journey, Far Eastern Curlew and other migratory waterbirds would be more susceptible and impacted by environmental changes. The Australian government proposed to establish the Far Eastern Curlew Task Force under EAAFP that was adopted in 2015. As a species linking with the maximum number of countries in the EAA Flyway, Far Eastern Curlew’s fate will be depending on the effective collaboration among government, researchers, conservationists, site managers of the range countries.
Bar-tailed Godwit, the king of longdistance avian migrant
Bar-tailed Godwit broke its own (known) record for nonstop avian flight in 2020, for an individual was tracked to had flown over 12,000 km from Alaska to New Zealand, in 11 days. While different migratory birds have different strategies for migration, Bar-tailed Godwit, uses as few stop-over as possible to make its migration very efficient. The finding was a result of collaborative research between Globally Flyway Network, Pūkorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre, Birds New Zealand, and Massey University in 2020. Twenty Bar-tailed Godwits were tagged in the Firth of Thames, a Ramsar Site as well as a Flyway Network Site in New Zealand.
In September, Bar-tailed Godwit flies north to its breeding ground in Alaska, having one stop-over at the Yellow Sea Region that is a bottleneck to the migration of many migratory shorebirds in the EAA Flyway, but it is, unfortunately, losing the coastal wetlands in the fastest rate than other places in the Flyway. The Pukorokoro Miranda Naturalists Trust and the Dandong City government signed the Sister Site Agreement in 2004 to pair Firth of Thames and Yalujiang National Nature Reserve. Joint surveys and important researchers were carried out regularly in Yalujiang Estuary. In addition, Pukorokoro Miranda Naturalists Trust reached out to North Korea to conduct joint shorebird surveys and capacity building since 2009.
Trends and Future Project
In 2018 a ten year Strategic Plan was adopted by the 39 Partners and other stakeholders to effectively conserve more than 21 0 species of migratory waterbirds in the EAA Flyway. The Strategic Plan is guiding Partners on developing the Flyway Site Network, enhancing CEPA (communication, education, participation and awareness), enhancing monitoring and research, capacity building, developing flyway-wide approaches and prioritize species and habitat conservation.
Important steps have been made on designating the Yellow Sea region as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The Migratory Bird Sanctuaries along the Coast of the Yellow were entered into the World Heritage List in 2019. The government in South Korea is also preparing to nominate important intertidal flats in the west coast to the World Heritage List. The next Meeting of Partners (MoP 11) of EAAFP is expected to be held in Australia in Brisbane in 2022.
COVID-pandemic breakout made an unprecedented splash to all people in 2020. Yet, it alerted us to rethink and repair our relationship with Nature and immediate actions are needed. In 2021, there are a number of events to set global agenda related to the future of biodiversity of the planet, including the coming 14th Meeting of the Conference to the Ramsar COP14, the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference and the 15th Meeting of Conference to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which will adopt the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, and moves forward to the “2050 Vision of “Living in harmony with nature”.
The EAA Flyway has a staff based in South Korea and Hong Kong, and hundreds volunteer scientists and citizens in 22 countries in the Western Pacific
Reference: https://www.eaaflyway.net. Vivian Fu, Communication Officer of EAAFP (communication@eaaflyway.net)
