Status of Birds and their Habitats in the Marine and Coastal Environment of Madagascar

Madagascar has expressed its concerns about the precious richness of the marine and coastal area by ratifying the ʺNairobi Conventionʺ in 2001. Madagascar has important marine and coastal biodiversity.  It has important concentrations of threatened coastal and marine birds. The coast of Madagascar plays an important role in the life cycle of several migratory birds, and is the end destination for many migratory shorebirds. Many bird species are endemic and resident to the coastal area of Madagascar. However, the marine and coastal biodiversity is threatened, mainly from disturbance and degradation from Madagascar’s human population and development activities associated with coastal communities, as well as direct threats such as harvesting and hunting. Facing these circumstances, the project “Enhancing the Protection of Birds in the Marine and Coastal Environment of the Nairobi Convention” was implemented to improve the conservation status of the bird species in the marine and coastal area of Madagascar. It allows national and international experts to consider jointly the status of these species and therefore to give new information related their ecology, their threats and the potential actions needed for their conservation.