Greater Sage-Grouse. Sublette County, Wyoming. Filmed by Gerrit Vyn/Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Protecting Birds on Economically Important Lands
Audubon helps landowners and land managers apply bird-friendly practices on their lands and develop market-based solutions to build economic incentives that have the potential to engage many more landowners.
What We’ll Do; Who We’ll Reach
We have a clear idea of what milestones we’ll need to reach so that habitat management on working lands benefits both birds and people. Here’s a snapshot.
- 500,000 Increase in acreage of working lands in bird-friendly management programs per year
- 10,000 Landowners engaged through active outreach and technical assistance
- $8-10 million Annual budget range to reach full potential
Birders observing Greater Sage-Grouse on a lek one wintry spring morning in March 2016. Photo: Dave Showalter
Outreach Is a Key Component to Our Work
Audubon will collaborate with landowners to expand bird habitats, providing tools and technical assistance to adopt beneficial land practices.
By carefully managing pastures for conservation, grass-fed-beef farmers can tend their cows and protect grassland birds. Photo: Ben Stechschulte/Redux
Supporting Sound Land-Management Policies
Audubon will engage on a policy level around reauthorization of the U.S. farm bill to promote sound conservation policies and increase conservation funding.
Florida Grasshopper Sparrow. Photo: Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark
Good Data Drives Sustainable Land Management
Audubon will monitor and measure how bird populations respond to our land-management practices to make sure we reach our conservation goals.
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Grasshopper Sparrow
Ammodramus savannarum
- 150 Number of Florida Grasshopper Sparrows remaining in the wild
- 1 Percent of native prairie left in the United States
- 67 million Acres of sagebrush habitat in the Interior West where Audubon is doing conservation work
Strong daily winds churn grasses in the afternoon as sunset approaches, near Cuatro Ciénegas, a desert town in Mexico's Coahuila state. Photo: Janet Jarman
Mexico
Protecting Grassland Birds in Latin America
Audubon is working with Pronatura Noroeste and local ranchers in the Chihuahuan Desert grasslands to promote sustainable ranching on 50,000 acres of grassland bird habitat.
Protecting Birds on Working Lands
We’re working with Central Valley landowners to create landscape-level change, from seasonally managing rice fields for shorebirds and eagles to creating habitat in hedgerows and field edges for warblers and bluebirds. To make this happen, we need to provide incentives for private landowners because, ultimately, these bird-friendly benefits are consumer-driven.
