BirdsCaribbean is a vibrant international network of members and partners committed to conserving Caribbean birds and their habitats through education, conservation, science and action. We coordinate a number of programs that help build capacity and empower our local partners to raise awareness, engage communities, and study, manage, and protect birds and the diverse habitats they need to survive—from backyards, parks, and schoolyards, to wetlands, coastal areas and forests. We strongly believe that developing a culture of stewardship and appreciation for nature in all the islands gives us our best long-term chance of ensuring a healthy environment for all.
Thanks to YOU – our members, donors and supporters – we’ve achieved so much over the years. We invite you to explore our website, and read our news/blog posts that describe all the positive results we have attained—from saving habitats from destruction to getting educational materials and binoculars into the hands of our partner organizations, to training and building local partner capacity for bird monitoring and tourism.
To achieve these goals, BirdsCaribbean holds a weeklong international conference every two years to facilitate networking and sharing of ideas among ornithologists, resource managers, and interested citizens. This meeting is also used as a forum to run training workshops on topics related to bird conservation, education, management, and research. BirdsCaribbean has a number of active Working Groups and Programs and publishes The Journal of Caribbean Ornithology (JCO) and a monthly newsletter. With assistance from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, BirdsCaribbean has sponsored the publication of many local bird field guides.
BirdsCaribbean works to raise public awareness, knowledge and appreciation of the value of the region’s many endemic bird species and their habitats through two flagship programs: the Caribbean Endemic Bird Festival and the West Indian Whistling-Duck and Wetlands Conservation Project. Thanks to a partnership with Environment for the Americas, BirdsCaribbean raises awareness about migratory birds, their amazing journeys and the critical importance of the Caribbean as stopover and wintering habitat through celebration of International Migratory Bird Day.
Through our new BirdSleuth Caribbean program we are training teachers in the Caribbean to involve young people in the natural world and build their science skills. The overall goal is to develop a strong conservation ethic in young people and promote commitment to environmental stewardship by increasing their knowledge and interest in birds, nature and science. The program uses the innovative BirdSleuth International curriculum developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and adapted for the Caribbean context.
We encourage monitoring of waterbirds and wetlands through our Caribbean Waterbird Census program. Not in its eighth year, the program has provided invaluable insights into key sites for shorebirds and waterbirds in the region as well as as raised the profile of mangroves, salinas and other endangered wetland habitats in the Caribbean.