iba

Introduction

Birdlife International together with the Ethiopian Wildlife and Natural History Society in 1995 and 1996 made a first inventory of important bird areas in Ethiopia. Apart from literature study, a team of young specially trained Ethiopian ornithologists collected a wealth of new data for this project. Nevertheless there will more Important Bird Areas in the country than this inventory now shows us. The methodology, including the criteria for the selection of sites, is similar to that used for the Middle East Important Bird Areas Project. These criteria consist of four categories:

Globally Threatened Species ( in Ethiopia 31 species)
Restricted Range Species (in Ethiopia 12 species)
Biome-restricted Assemblages ( in Ethiopia a total of 184 species in three biomes: Afrotropical Highland, Somali-Masai and Sudan-Guinea Savannah)
Congregations, with 4 sub-categories:

a. Site known or thought to hold, on a regular basis, 1% or more of a biogeographic population of a congregatory waterbird species.
b. Site known or thought to hold, on a regular basis, 1% or more of the global population of a congretatory seabird or terrestrial species
c. Site known or thought to hold, on a regular basis, 20.000 or more waterbirds ot 10.000 or more pairs of seabirds of one or more species.
d. Site known or thought to exceed thresholds set for migratory species at bottleneck sites.

Important Bird Areas in Tigray

In Tigray birds of all three biome assemblages can be found: Highland mainly on the plateau, Somali-Masai at the lower altitudes both along the escarpment and in the Tekeze lowlands, and Sudan-Guinea in the Tekeze lowlands (see Birds in Tigray)

The keyspecies for Tigray Region:

Category 1. Globally Threatened species:
Vulnerable:
Ferruginous Duck Aythya nyroca

Near threatened:
Pallid Harrier Circus macrourus
Rouget's Rail Rougetius rougetii
Cinereous Bunting Emberiza cineracea

Category 2. Restricted-range species
Rüppell's Chat Myrmecocichla melaena

Category 4. Congregations 1% or more of population:
Wattled Ibis Bostrychia carunculata

Four areas were identified so far as Important Bird Areas (see map here). The first three mainly based on my bird observations in the years 1993-1996. Click on the thumbnails for images of these areas.

009- Lake Ashenge- 12. 35 N / 39. 30 E - Area not yet defined- Unprotected.

The criteria for selecting this site were the small winter population (30+) of Ferruginous Duck Aythya nyroca and the number (133+) of Wattled Ibis Bostrychia carunculata.
028- Dessa'a Forest - 13.20 - 14.10 N / 39.32-39.55 E - Area: 120,026 ha - National Forest Priority Area.

The criteria for selecting were a record of a single Cinereous Bunting Emberiza cineracea, the occurrence of Pallid Harrier Circus macrourus and Rouget's Rail Rougetius rougetii and 15 Highland Biome species (31% of the total Highland Biome assemblage for Ethiopia).

041- Hugumburda and Grat-Kahsu Forests - 12.22- 12.42 N / 39.28 - 39.40 E - Area 40,000 ha - National Forest Priority Area.

Selected because 12 Highland Biome species (25% of the total Highland Biome assemblage for Ethiopia) were seen during a preliminary survey.

058 - Shire Lowlands in the Tekeze Valley - 13.45 - 14.15 N / 37.15 - 38.45 E - Area not defined. Wildlife Reserve: unprotected.
Selected because it is expected that the area hold many species of the Sudan-Guinea Biome (only three known to occur so far.)

Much more information about these sites, including a site description and paragraph on conservation issues can be found in the IBA- book:

Important Bird Areas of Ethiopia
A First Inventory

Published (1969) and distributed by:
Ethiopian Wildlife & Natural History Society
P.O.Box 13303, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
tel: ++251-1-614838 fax: ++251-1-552350/535023

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