Bird conservation without borders Twelve tracts of largely
unprotected land in northeastern Australia have been identified
as internationally important areas for birds, in the first
management approach of its kind. The Important Bird Areas (IBAs)
are an effort to get private land holders and government
agencies involved in conservation. While there have been many
efforts to protect birds from threats such as habitat
destruction in Australia, this is the first systematic approach
to identifying key areas of concern. "It's absolutely about
identifying priorities," said Dr Michael Weston, research and
conservation manager of Birds Australia. "Those Important Bird
Areas are important because they're holding threatened birds or
a lot of birds. We want to at least maintain them and maybe
improve them if we can. But they're real priorities." BirdLife
International has been identifying Important Bird Areas around
the world for the past decade. But Weston said this was the
first time they had been identified in Austra