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Administrative: Important Birding Areas (IBAs)
History of the IBA Program
The IBA Program began in Europe in the 1980s by BirdLife International (hereafter BirdLife), a global coalition of conservation organizations that recognized that the key to effective bird conservation lay in unifying the global community toward a common goal. BirdLife developed a set of standardized scientific criteria that were used to select the most important sites for vulnerable birds across Europe and then focused conservation efforts on those sites. Their efforts achieved widespread success, resulting in greater than 2,400 IBAs in over 31 countries encompassing over 16 million acres of critical habitat that are better protected as a result. Spurred by Europe’s success, IBA programs were quickly established in over 170 nations on every continent. IBA inventories have already been published for Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and par[ouhts of the Americas, and IBA programs have been initiated in Antarctica, the Pacific region, and for International waters.
The IBA Program took root in the United States in 1995 through a partnership with BirdLife, the American Bird Conservancy, and the National Audubon Society. The National Audubon Society focused on identifying sites at the state level, while the American Bird Conservancy focused at the national level. The first state-run IBA Program was launched in Pennsylvania in 1995 with New York soon to follow in 1996. Since then, 46 additional states have initiated IBA programs and over 2,100 sites have been identified that cover more than 220 million acres of habitat. During this process, the paths of the American Bird Conservancy and Audubon diverged and in 2005, Audubon became the official U.S. Partner of BirdLife International and now implements the IBA program nationally.
The Virginia Audubon Council (VAC) spearheaded the IBA Program in Virginia in 2002. VAC obtained the initial funding and forged a vital partnership with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF) and the Virginia Society of Ornithology (VSO) to provide technical, strategic and financial resources. VDGIF, through State Wildlife Grant funds, provided significant support to run the program and to hire an IBA Coordinator. VSO provided critical start-up monies to launch and sustain the program during its formative years and continues to provide financial as well as technical support for ongoing IBA activities.
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