CMS Workshop on Land Use Policies and Their Effects on Migratory Landbirds in West Africa (LUMB, 2016)

The African-Eurasian Migratory Landbirds Action Plan (AEMLAP) identifies land-use changes as one of the most relevant threats for the conservation of migratory birds in Africa. These changes are occurring rapidly and are related to the development of intensive agriculture, traditional agriculture including pastoralism and small-scale cropping systems, exploitation of timber and non-timber forest products, water management, energy, reforestation and reducing desertification and carbon emissions from deforestation and degradation.

All these factors mentioned above are having an impact on the habitats of migratory birds and require an integrated approach to land use management. This integrated approach should encourage local implementation of land-use management policies through appropriate incentive programmes. An ecosystem approach is needed as a strategy for the integrated management of land, water and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in a fair and equitable way.

Together, these issues are central to the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals, the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Aichi Targets and the CMS Strategic Plan.

Given the relevance of land use change for the conservation of migratory birds, Resolution 11.17 on the conservation of landbirds in the African-Eurasian region urges CMS Parties to address the issue of habitat loss and degradation through the development of policies that maintain, manage and restore natural and semi-natural habitats within the wider environment, including working with local communities, and in partnership with the poverty alleviation community and the agriculture and forestry sectors in Africa.

In order to discuss these issues, the CMS Secretariat is organizing a Workshop on Sustainable Land Use in West Africa: National and International Policy Responses that Deliver for Migratory Birds and People. The meeting will take place in Abuja (Nigeria) the 24-26 November 2016 and will bring together government representatives from West African countries and experts from international organizations dealing with land use change. The workshop will have three key objectives focussing particularly on five pilot countries: Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal. These objectives are the following:

• Agree on the main recent and likely future land use change related to agricultural and forested landscapes and associated wetlands, and the main challenges to achieving sustainable land use;
• Identify initiatives that can address priority challenges to sustainable land use for each pilot country; and
• Develop a West African land use Resolution to be submitted to the CMS COP in 2017, and a parallel declaration for adoption by other instruments.

The workshop is being organized in close cooperation with the Nigerian Government and BirdLife International, and is generously funded by the Swiss government.

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