NATURE FORUM WORLDWIDE

[Daan Vreugdenhil]

"Farmland Birds across the World" is the title of a new book by Wouter van der Weijden, Paul Terwan and Adriaan Guldemond. The book claims that 37% of the species of birds in the world to some degree depend on agricultural lands. I am inclined to question such analysis. By my knowledge there is no record of a bird species having evolved in the last few thousands of years when agriculture started to take over most arable land on our planet. So all or 99.9% of all species existed before agriculture spread across the world. That means that no species depends on agriculture.

Assuming that the authors reviewed all 10 000 species of birds and their distribution across agricultural lands - which I find a bit hard to believe -, one should rather say that 37% of bird species can survive or at least can use agricultural lands for fulfilling part of their needs. Of course, farmer interests groups and politicians like to hear such percentages to prove how important agricultural lands are for the survival of species. However, such statements are very misleading. Having said that, we have to be realistic: With so much of natural habitats having been lost, it is nice to know that as many as 37% of the species apparently seem to be surviving, while a smaller but important percentage in fact has greatly benefitted from agricultural lands. Their numbers have increased manifold.

In fact, the book is very interesting, because many of us live in urban and/or near agricultural landscapes and many of the birds we can see, within a reasonable "nature commute" will belong to the 37%. And we love to see those birds, well, most of them. So, in spite of a disagreement with a certain remark in the book, we can warmly recommend this most interesting and beautiful book.
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Dr. Ir. Daan Vreugdenhil
Please visit: http://www.birdlist.org/site/why_birds.htm and
http://www.adopt-a-ranger.org
as well as our beautiful pictures at:
http://www.nature-worldwide.info/phpbb/album.php

[Bryant02]

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