October 10: World Migratory Bird Day

The World Migratory Bird Day is celebrated twice a year, that is, on second Saturdays of May and October. Earlier in May, the day was celebrated on May 9, 2020. Both the days are celebrated under the same theme. This year, the day is celebrated under the theme

Theme: Birds Connect Our World

The World Migratory Day is an awareness raising campaign that highlights the protection and conservation required for migratory birds. It was begun in 2018.

Who organizes World Migratory Day?

The campaign is organised by two international wildlife treaties administered by the United Nations Environment Programme. They are as follows

• African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement
• Convention on the conservation of Migratory species of wild animals.

The idea of celebrating World Migratory Day was designed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service in 1993.

Conservation of Migratory Species

The Convention on Conservation of Migratory Species is also called Bonn convention. The convention text more than 173 migratory species all over the world. As of November 2019, 130 parties have joined the convention. Maldives was the latest country to join the convention in November 2019 appendix 1 of the convention list of endangered or threatened migratory species. Appendix II to list the migratory species that are currently under unfavourable conservation status. Appendix II species required International agreements to conserve them.

The COP 13 Boss held in India. It is proposed to include 10 new species under the convention on conservation of migratory species. It included three Indian species namely Asian elephant, Great Indian Bustard and the Bengal florican.

Need for conservation of migratory birds species

According to the World Wildlife Fund the increase in consumption of food and resources have led to Natural Habitat loss. This is also accompanied by developmental activities such as Dam it has led to decline in animal population. The World Wildlife Fund has named this as Sixth mass extinction. According to living planet index, the earth will take around 5 to 7 million years to recover. Between 1970 and 2014 60 percentage of animal and bird population have been wiped out. Wetlands are the hot breeding spots of migratory birds. With the increase in infrastructural and developmental activities the wetlands are disappearing fast. This in turn is affecting population of migratory birds to large extent.

Month: Current Affairs - October, 2020