Habitat destruction in the Yellow Sea is impacting migratory waterbirds (PRESS6.1)

© Hiyashi Haka, Flickr

The East Asian-Australasian Flyway supports at least 50 million waterbirds, many of which depend on a network of intertidal habitats. Concentration of their populations at key stopover sites while on passage means that some migratory waterbird species are particularly vulnerable to site-based threats.


Estimates of loss of intertidal flats in the Yellow Sea (including Bohai Sea) interpolating between years and extrapolating to 2020.
SOURCE MacKinnon et al. (2012) IUCN situation analysis on East and Southeast Asian intertidal habitats, with particular reference to the Yellow Sea (including the Bohai Sea). IUCN Species Survival Commission Report No. 47.

Land reclamation is destroying intertidal habitat at an alarming rate in East Asia. A recent analysis calculated that China and South Korea had ‘reclaimed’ 51% and 60% respectively of their coastal wetlands since 1980. This scale of habitat loss is driving declines in migratory birds as well as other intertidal biodiversity, and impacting the livelihoods of millions of people who depend on intertidal ecosystem services.

Construction of the South Korean Saemangeum seawall in 2006 destroyed 28,000 hectares of intertidal habitat, including two estuarine IBAs. Monitoring indicated that damage to this site resulted in the global population of Great Knot Calidris tenuirostris declining by 24% (90,000 individuals), with similar declines in a number of other shorebird populations.


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Compiled: 2014    Copyright: 2014   

Recommended Citation:
BirdLife International (2014) Habitat destruction in the Yellow Sea is impacting migratory waterbirds. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 19/03/2024


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