The SCALE project partners say birds are key indicators of biodiversity changes

Conservation practice, backed with strong data and recommendations, is high on the EU agenda. One of the most important ways to identify changes in the environment and in natural populations is to focus on biodiversity and environmental monitoring. The data generated from monitoring helps decision makers and researchers design and assess biodiversity policies, conservation management, land use decisions and environmental protection.

The SCALES ('Securing the conservation of biodiversity across administrative levels and spatial, temporal, and ecological scales') project has performed an evaluation that focused on providing scientific and policy research required to guide scale-dependent management actions. SCALES has received almost EUR 7 million under the Environment Theme of the EU's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).

The SCALE project partners said birds are key indicators of biodiversity because of their distribution and popularity on a global scale. Data indicate that there are more than 600 all monitoring programmes in Europe. Presented in the journal Nature Conservation, the evaluation shows that almost 28,000 people have participated in the 144 monitoring programmes that cover birds, spending nearly 80,000 person days each year.

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