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This project supported by the Monsanto Fund.

Sandhill Cranes. Wyman Meintzer, USFWS

While many people in cities and suburbs enjoy birdwatching, the majority of birds live in rural areas where much of the land is used for farming. What are the best ways for birds and man to peacefully co-exist -- and even provide benefits to each other? Monsanto and National Audubon Society joined up with growers representing a number of key crops to identify the best practices used by farmers today, and to share those examples to help other farmers.

America’s 442 million acres of cropland provide society with food and fiber and support individual livelihoods and local and regional economies throughout the nation. These “working lands,” which cover a fifth of the country’s total area, are also an extremely important, and often overlooked, part of the ecological heritage of the United States. At their best, they function as islands of biodiversity that sustain a great number of plant and animal species, including the majority of North American waterbirds.

To address the need for a national-level dialogue with the agricultural community about the stewardship of potential wildlife habitat under its influence, Audubon has partnered with Monsanto in its “Waterbirds on Working Lands” project, a large-scale effort to identify and promote sustainable agricultural practices that will maintain the economic viability of farms while measurably improving the conservation value of these privately-owned lands.

Waterbirds, which depend on aquatic habitats for at least some part of their lives, use working lands in myriad ways:

• As habitat for feeding, resting, and roosting, and during periods of molt.
• As breeding grounds, with different types of habitats, such as hedgerows, pastures, wetlands and riparian areas, used for courtship, nesting, and the raising of offspring.
• As migratory stopovers, for critical resources during arduous journeys.

The status of waterbird populations directly reflects the health of the environment. Declining populations often indicate disruption of the natural checks and balances of functioning ecosystems. Consequently, practices that protect and support the viability of waterbird populations are the same ones required to ensure healthy human populations.

Despite general knowledge about the habits and habitats of waterbirds on working lands, many of the details of the relationships between agricultural land-use practices and patterns of different species’ abundances and distributions remain unknown. Unknown, too, are many of the direct and indirect effects, both positive and negative, of farming practices on waterbird activity and survival.

Through Waterbirds on Working Lands, Audubon is building a science-based conservation framework for engaging farmers by focusing on the improvement of wetlands and agricultural landscapes for waterbirds. This ambitious goal requires three fundamental building blocks:

• A rigorous assessment of the conservation needs of waterbirds in agricultural landscapes.
• Identification and promotion of specific agricultural practices to address waterbird conservation needs.
• Implementation of on-the-ground conservation activities and public outreach.

Audubon has identified 265 species of North American waterbirds; species that breed, winter, or migrate across the continental landscape, and as such, those for which we have a “conservation responsibility.” Of the 265 species, 215 (all but seabirds) are likely to use working lands to some extent. For these species, efforts are underway to:

• document population status throughout the continental U.S. and, specifically, on land in production for row crops,
• assess the current understanding of agricultural impacts on populations, and
• identify important gaps in available data.

Using this information, “best management practices” are being developed for species with the greatest potential to be impacted by agricultural practices; those that occur with regularity in areas of high-intensity agriculture. We have identified 146 focal waterbirds: species that occur in a Bird Conservation Region (BCR) with at least 10% of its total land area in row crop production, where the species’ density is at least 1/100^th of that in the BCR in which they are most densely distributed.

There are seven BCRs with at least 10% of total acreage devoted to the production of row crops - corn, cotton, peanut, rice, sorghum, soybeans, tobacco, spring wheat, and winter wheat. These seven BCRs (labeled with numbers 11, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, and 26 below) encompass a broad swath of the central continental U.S. and constitute a large portion of the Mississippi watershed:

© National Audubon Society

Click on each bird conservation number to read details about the habitat: BCR11, BCR18, BCR19, BCR22, BCR23, BCR24, BCR26

Since so many agricultural areas occur in regions with lakes, rivers, wetlands, and other water-based habitats (underscoring the potential for farming practices to directly affect waterbird populations), the partnership with Monsanto is a natural one that will allow Audubon to extend its waterbird conservation work and team up with growers in promoting environmentally responsible farming practices.

By engaging a broad spectrum of stakeholders—private landowners, academics, government and agency personnel, and representatives for the agriculture industry and non-profit organizations—Waterbirds on Working Lands will define and promote sustainable farming practices through:

• Identification of efforts by growers that exemplify best management practices for waterbird conservation.
• Development of sets of recommended agricultural practices for focal species.
• Identification of opportunities and strategies for promoting the implementation of defined best management practices.

Many farmers have already begun incorporating sustainable practices into the working of their lands. Audubon Magazine recently profiled several successful approaches to balancing the running of agri-businesses and the conservation of wildlife habitat (“Green Acres,” November-December 2005). Waterbird on Working Land pilot projects have been initiated in Arkansas, Missouri, and Mississippi—states with well-developed Important Bird Areas (IBA) programs, and in which many IBAs have been identified because they provide critical waterbird resources. In these states, the national IBA database is being used to develop, implement, and track the success of conservation plans for waterbird IBAs, with specific focus on those potentially impacted by local and regional agricultural activities.

As one of the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots environmental organizations, Audubon is dedicated to conserving and restoring natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the Earth's biological diversity. With its long history and extensive knowledge of waterbird conservation, it is uniquely suited to team up with growers who have on-the-farm expertise in bringing to light beneficial practices that encourage waterbirds to flourish while maintaining high agricultural productivity.

References

Lubowski, Ruben N., Marlow Vesterby, Shawn Bucholtz, Alba Baez, and Michael J. Roberts. May 2006. Major Uses of Land in the United States, 2002. EIB-14. Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.