Speaker: Ramesh Kumar Selvaraj is a scientist with Wetlands and Flyways Programme of Bombay Natural History Society. He works on the interactions of birds with renewable energy infrastructures and also on bird migration studies. He has also been assisting the Indian Government in taking forward the Central Asian Flyway Initiative.
Abstract: India has been actively involved in fostering flyway cooperation and has also organized intergovernmental meetings that have been critically important in developing and taking forward agreements and plans. As part of this India has launched a comprehensive National Action Plan for Migratory Bird Conservation (NAP) in 2018, with a aim to halt and arrest the decline of migratory birds in India. This National Action Plan has prioritized 20 species as important for the Central Asian flyway and recommends preparation of National Single species action plan for these species. In this regard, Bombay Natural History Society has developed a conservation action plan that seeks to protect groups of wader species that occur across similar habitats in the Indian wintering grounds. There are ten such species of migratory waders viz. Curlew Sandpiper, Black-tailed Godwit, Lesser Sand Plover, Little Stint, Crab Plover, Great Knot, Bar-tailed Godwit, Long-toed Stint, Eurasian Curlew and Red Knot that are highly dependent on both coastal and inland wetlands during their nonbreeding period of their annual life cycle. Population of most of the above-mentioned wader species has declined or changed considerably in recent decades, and their survival is largely linked to the quality and extent of wetland habitats and the wider landscapes within which they are found. The conservation actions will be achieved through improving the knowledge of the species, and their distribution in India, setting conservation goals for managing the healthy populations, coordinating conservation efforts and management of the key habitats where they are occurring, and tackling the key threats for both the species and their habitats.
The recording is also available on Bilibili: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1PJ4m187vP/