Key Biodiversity Areas

INTRODUCTION: The Importance of birds and biodiversity

Key Biodiversity Areas

Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) are sites contributing significantly to the global survival of biodiversity. The KBA standard builds upon existing approaches to identifying areas of greatest importance for biodiversity, notably Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs), which are KBAs of international importance for birds identified by BirdLife International. In Africa, nearly 2,000 KBAs have been identified so far, of which the majority (62%) are IBAs. The new global KBA standard was only adopted by IUCN – International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which produces the Red List of threatened species – in 2017. Therefore the new set of criteria has not yet been systematically applied to all taxonomic groups and ecosystems. It is expected that as new efforts are invested in applying the standard to various forms of biodiversity, the number of KBAs will increase. To coordinate and facilitate this process, eleven international conservation organizations formed a KBA Partnership which was launched at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in September 2016. The KBA Partnership, now 12 partners, will implement a KBA Programme with the stated goal of developing, maintaining and promoting an up-to-date list of KBAs.

Nearly 2,000 KBAs have been identified in Africa so far. (PHOTO: ©BirdLife International)

Currently, only about half of all KBAs have at least partial protection and only one-fifth of them are fully protected. The SDGs and Aichi Targets provide a timely opportunity to secure the longterm protection of KBAs as the most important sites for maintaining global biodiversity. KBAs should also guide government and investment decisions to promote sustainable development and avoid harmful infrastructure and land use changes through adequate safeguard mechanisms, land use planning and certification schemes.

SOURCE Analysis of BirdLife data (2016). IUCN (2016). A Global Standard for the Identification of Key Biodiversity Areas Version 1.0 First edition. Gland, Switzerland Retrieved from https://portals.iucn. org/library/sites/library/files/documents/Rep-2016-005. pdf

Key Biodiversity Areas