MONITORING SCHEMES IN PORTUGAL, TRENDS, CHALLENGES AND FUTURE

Abstract

Monitoring schemes are fundamental tools to access changes in abundance and distribution patterns of bird species and/or communities. Additionally, they provide up-to-date information, fundamental to design successful conservation measures and optimal management decisions. In Portugal the majority of these schemes are coordinated by NGO’s or the National Conservation Institute, except a few schemes leaded by research groups. In this talk we will present an overview of the monitoring schemes in Portugal based on the publicly available information, since this is a fundamental tool to provide feedback to the volunteers and general public, but also to policy makers. The oldest monitoring scheme is the Wintering Waterbird Census running since 1976, while most schemes started after the year 2000 (e.g. Christmas and New Year Census (CANAN) – 2003, Common Bird Survey – 2004, NOCTUA – 2009).