Goa will be just the second State after Kerala, to initiate preparation of a bird atlas in India.
On Monday, a consortium of 22 organisations from the State, country and internationally announced the unique effort to initiate the Goa Bird Atlas, which is an ornithological work that provides information on the distribution, abundance, long-term change, and seasonal patterns of bird occurrence.
The announcement was facilitated by Dr S Subramanya, a well-known ornithologist and student of Dr Salim Ali, Dr Asad Rahmani, ex-Director of Bombay Natural History Society well known for his work on Important Bird Areas of India and Praveen J, who coordinated Kerala Bird Atlas from Bird Count India.
While the process is scientific in nature, the method is designed in a way that it is based on the nuances of citizen science which will be dependent on the contributions of students from schools, colleges, teachers, birdwatchers, ornithologists, and anyone in the state who would want to contribute towards conservation of birds in Goa.
The objective of the Goa Bird Atlas is to survey roughly 370 km2 of the State within one calendar year 2023-24: twice, during dry (mid-December to mid-February) and wet (mid-August to mid-October) seasons, exactly for 60 days in each season.
The effort shall provide information on the distribution, abundance, long-term change, and seasonal patterns of bird occurrence in Goa, that will become an important tool for conservation, providing a standard assessment of the status of breeding birds and laying the framework for evaluating long-term changes in the light of climate change and changing land use patterns.
The atlas project is led by Dr Pronoy Baidya, Jalmesh Karapurkar from Arannya Environment Research Organisation and Sujeetkumar Dongre from Centre for Environment Education in collaboration with forest department, Goa University, Goa State Biodiversity Board, Goa State Wetland Authority and Bird Count India, while it is supported by Wipro Foundation and Integrated Biopharma and Pharma Solution.
Technical partners include Wetlands International, Bombay Natural History Society, Goa Bird Conservation Network and SAWE, while several other NGO’s and responsible tourism operators have pledged their support for the initiative. The consortium will carry out four intense training workshops in both the districts of Goa in July for all participants who are interested, and the actual surveys shall kick-off on August 15.
It is expected that data produced from the efforts of Goa Bird Atlas would help the scientific and conservation community of Goa to understand critical information about birds like temporal patterns of species responses to season, high resolution distribution maps of key species, identification of species that have conservation implications locally and identifying critical habitats that need conservation.
The logo of the Goa Bird Atlas Initiative features the threatened Malabar Grey Hornbill, whose population has declined steeply since 2012 in the State and will act as the mascot for protection and conservation of bird habitats for Goa. More details on how to contribute and participate are available on the website (https://www.arannya.in/goa-bird-atlas).
