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Winging It • September/October 2007
BYKNUT EISERMANN
B
irds are among the best-researched and most popular animals
worldwide, which makes them useful promoters for nature
conservation. The identification of Important Bird Areas (IBA), a
prioritization scheme developed by BirdLife International, aims to
establish a network of sites to protect the global avifauna. The des-
ignation of IBAs is based on four criteria: the presence of (1) glob-
ally threatened species, (2) restricted-range species, (3)
biome-restricted species, and (4) congregatory species. Birds in
these categories are target species not just for nature conservation,
but also for birders.
Guatemala is an attractive birding destination with more than
720 bird species, of which 24 are restricted to northern Central
America. The highest concentration of range- and biome-
restricted species is found in the highlands, where some 10% (22
species) of the breeding birds are endemic to the northern Central
American highlands. The range of Horned Guan, Pink-headed
Warbler, Azure-rumped Tanager, and Black-capped Siskin is
restricted to the mountains of Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico.
Guatemalan lowlands areless distinct and have many species in
common with southern Central America. However, it is in the
Atlantic lowlands that Guatemala’sbirds attain their greatest diver-
sity: morethan 500 species.
Important BirdAreas in Guatemala areidentified by the
Ornithological Society of Guatemala in collaboration with BirdLife
International and local stakeholders. About 47% of Guatemala ful-
fills the IBA criteria. A total of 21 areas have been designated,
based on the habitat requirements of key species and on agree-
ments with local authorities regarding conservation management.
Guatemalan IBAs tend to be rather large, ranging from 44 to
21,000 square kilometers; they include
not only intact habitat (60% of the area of
all IBAs), but also areas where efforts
should be made to restore habitat (40%).
Villages and towns near or within the
IBAs are strategic centers for environ-
mental education.
Long-term habitat conservation in
Guatemala is challenging. The country’s
population grew by 35% from 1994 to
2002, and pressure on natural habitats
can only increase. Protected areas cover a
third of the country, but many reserves
exist only on paper and lack adequate
management. A basic need for successful
conservation is to raise the education
level of Guatemalan society (28% of the
population aged over 15 is illiterate),
which could help lower the rate of popu-
lation growth. Moretargeted programs,
such as the incentives for primaryforest
conservation and reforestation paid by
Important Bird Areas in Guatemala
the National Forest Institute, are a valuable but short-term way to
encourage landowners to protect habitat. In the long run, success-
ful nature conservation will depend on environmental education
efforts to create a sense of the value of pristine nature reserves; it
will also be necessary to provide alternative sources of income
from the sustainable use of natural areas.
Tourism can be one of those sustainable sources. Birding con-
tinues to grow as a leisure activity in North America and northern
Europe, and tropical destinations benefit economically from the
visits of traveling birders. Eleven of Guatemala’s IBAs already pro-
vide sites with infrastructure and services for world birders,
including access roads, trails for birding, overlooks, lodges, restau-
rants, and local birding guides. Many other sites are currently
developing local tourism programs, and many more sites have a
high potential for becoming birding hotspots. Descriptions of
many good birding sites are available online at www.guatemal-
abirding.com.
Low-impact tourism can help private nature reserves finance
their conservation efforts. From 2001 to 2006, 94 new protected
areas were declared in Guatemala, 79 of them private nature
reserves. This indicates the high level of conservation interest in
the private sector,which is increasingly awarethat natural habitat,
which still covers 40% of the country,can be profitably used with-
out being destroyed. Recent species inventories demonstrate the
importance of these private reserves: Los Tarrales Reserve
(www.tarrales.com) on the southernslope of Atitlan volcano, for
example, supports four globally threatened species, and the
Chelemha Reserve (www.chelemha.org) in the Yalijux Mountains
of Alta Verapaz protects habitat for 15 regional endemics. Com-
ments in the visitor books reveal that both reserves provide excel-
lent service for world birders.
Birders traveling in Guatemala enjoy not
just the country’s rich avifauna but also a
vibrant and diverse Mayan culture. A total of
25 languages are spoken in Guatemala.
Travel impressions in Guatemala are formed
by both modern Mayan lifestyles and the
ancient Mayan temples at such archaeologi-
cal sites as Tikal or Yaxha.
Birding tourism can contribute to conser-
vation in Guatemala’s Important Bird Areas,
especially if it is developed in a responsible
manner. It is our hope that Guatemala’s IBA
program will motivate the development of
further local birding initiatives, which in
turn benefit the birds and the habitats pro-
tected in the IBAs.
Knut Eisermann is an ornithologist and conser-
vationist and the co-founder of Cayaya Birding
(www
.cayaya-birding.com). He can be reached
at knut.eisermann@avesdeguatemala.org.