Data Zone
The threats leading to population declines in birds in Africa are many and varied, and mirror those impacting bird species worldwide. BirdLife is responsible for collating, maintaining and evaluating the threats faced by the world’s threatened bird species, as part of its work on assessing their extinction risk for the IUCN Red List.
In Africa, as throughout the world, birds are faced with a wide variety of threats, the most significant being habitat fragmentation, degradation and destruction as well as direct impacts including hunting and trapping. Of the 2,355 bird species in Africa, 245 are classified as globally threatened. Of these, 183 (75%) are threatened by agriculture. Other key threats include logging (affecting 49% of threatened species), invasive species (47%) and climate change and severe weather (38%). What is especially clear is that many of Africa’s rarest species are impacted by multiple, compounding threats.
Related Case Studies in other sections
Compiled: 2013
Recommended Citation:
BirdLife International (2013)
Multiple threats are driving threatened birds towards extinction in Africa.
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