Conservation – Preserving our Ecosystems

The Forest Bird Society has been created as a complementary force in the difficult task trying to maintain a balance between human development and the conservation of our forests and the birds that inhabit them. Preserving our ecosystems in a pristine condition may be a utopia, but the truth of the matter is we must try to save them from disappearing, for the future generations to enjoy them like we have.

Several Organizations in North America have been involved in bird and forest conservation for many years and have developed good conservation programs that are being carried out today. Much the same thing can be said about Latin America, except that many of these programs have not been implemented due to lack of resources. The Forest Bird Society’s main goal is to bring these two concepts together and better utilize the resources available throughout the Americas.

Purple Honeycreeper, tropical South America

Many birds travel to the tropics during the winter months in North America and the same thing with some species from the southern part of South America, therefore bringing this continent to one big ecosystem. We depend on the Amazon and Orinoco forests for oxygen and they also serve the world as a weather thermostat, regulating the amount of water and oxygen in the air. Therefore we must try to preserve or at least somehow make up for the damage we us as human beings are causing through modern development.

More and more land is cleared every year for human use, and this means less trees to produce oxygen for us and homes to our birds and more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, plus many other consequences, not to mention soil erosion and drought. For these and many other reasons we must try to reverse this destruction trend. We owe it to our children.

Photo: Area of rainforest clearing.
Note the change in habitat conditions after logging.