Forest alliance

their livelihoods. Examples include coastal mangrove swamps protecting fisheries and coastlines in tropical areas including Kenya (see Curr. Biol. 19, R539–R540) and rainforests in Oceania (see this issue, page R497–R498). But how can one transfer these local success stories to the global scale? How can the international community ensure its conservation efforts will get better marks at the end of the second decade of the century than they got after the first? And another report published last month adds to the concern about future prospects for biodiversity conservation. BirdLife International have been studying the biodiversity efforts in Europe, a continent with some of the strongest commitments to the UN's 2010 biodiversity targets. But the launch of the report got off to a gloomy start last month when the organisation officially announced the extinction of the Alaotra grebe in Madagascar. The bird, similar to the European little grebe, inhabited only a tiny area in the east of Madagascar. Its numbers declined after carnivorous fish were introduced into the freshwater lakes where it lived and fishermen began to use nylon gillnets which caught and drowned the birds. BirdLife International, which compiles the red lists of endangered species, finds increasing numbers of species moving closer towards extinction. Back in Europe, the organisation found things less than rosy. Pressure on wildlife and ecosystems is still high, with agriculture, transport, energy and urban development identified as the most important drivers of biodiversity loss, the report says. The organisation found that forest birds are the only group to be in good condition across much of the EU. Only 17 per cent of the habitats and species other than birds surveyed are in a favourable condition. The organisation also finds that EU international legislation, integration of biodiversity into sectorial policies and land-use planning and enforcing protection for those species on national Red Lists are all considered inadequate while national biodiversity strategies are highly insufficient. Plans to develop networks of protected areas, both on land and at sea, were also found to be incomplete or insufficient. The organisation found that national bird monitoring within the EU was good, but in contrast to national biodiversity monitoring and research, both seen as inadequate. But, in spite of the overall gloom, the organisation found examples of best practice and localised success stories " that send an important message to the EU ". Some of the most threatened groups of birds, such …