Birders all over the country will remember the first Southern African Bird Atlas Project, the results of which were published in 1997. This first atlas involved the participation of thousands of bird watchers all over the country and was the first project of its kind in southern Africa to involve so many "citizen scientists". A large amount of information about the distribution and density of birds was collected which culminated in the publication of the first bird atlas. Best of all, many people were brought in to birding through their interest in the atlas project and because participation was so much fun!
Projects such as the bird atlas are specifically designed to be a dynamic monitoring exercise rather than a once off effort. A key result of such a project is to provide information about our changing environment and how these changes affect our southern African birds. The information gathered by these "citizen scientists" is very important in helping us make the right environmental management decisions
As the atlas is meant to provide snapshots of our changing environment the time has come to again rally together birders for the production of the second bird atlas which will be called South African Bird Atlas Project 2 (SABAP2).
The SABAP2 project will be a joint venture between the Avian Demography Unit of the University of Cape Town, BirdLife South Africa and the South African National Biodiversity Institute. The three organisations are collaborating on this huge project to produce an updated benchmark bird atlas for the region and to provide us with our first opportunity to see how bird distributions have changed in the past couple of decades.
The Mazda Wildlife Fund has again been very generous with the donation of a vehicle to help with the field work component of the project, as have the Tony and Lizette Lewis foundation that has provided funding to get the project started.
Anyone interested in participating in this exciting project is invited to contact Neil Smith at BirdLife South Africa on 082 859 3788 or on email address conservation@birdlife.org.za