New opportunities for bird conservation research
This article is part of a larger document. View the larger document here.Abstract
It is accepted and acknowledged that effective conservation requires a scientific basis, and it is accepted and acknowledged that scientific research benefits conservation. However, there has been little effort to bring together the resources of the research communities— both academic and government-based—with the conservation planning and implementation programs. Most scientific research is driven by either the investigator's own research interests or, on the government side, by the relatively short-term, relatively local management needs of natural resource managers. Also lacking is a comprehensive system to bring new or existing science to the conservation programs and resource managers. Developing a system to help planners and managers find and apply existing data is a critical need. And finally, there is a need to find funding for each of these components—setting the research agenda, conducting the research, and making it available to planners and managers. This session reviewed several promising opportunities to knit together ornithological research and bird conservation work.