Native Field and Meadow Birds: Population Stagnates

Improvements in biodiversity-promoting measures in agriculture have slowed the decline, but an upward trend is yet to be seen, the bird protection organization Birdlife Austria announced on Thursday. This is evident from the Farmland Bird Index (FBI) published by Birdlife. According to this, the index value for 2024 is almost identical to the 2023 value at 56.1 percent.

According to Birdlife, this means that the population of Austria's meadow and field birds has roughly halved since 1998. The Corn Bunting shows the strongest population decline during this period, with a decrease of 97 percent. The downward trend of the indicator has significantly flattened over the past eleven years, but it is still slightly decreasing.

Populations of Native Field and Meadow Birds Stagnate

According to Birdlife, the Farmland Bird Index is part of the Common Monitoring and Evaluation System (CMES) for evaluating measures for rural development within the framework of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). It is considered an official biodiversity indicator for Austria and the EU (current program period 2023 to 2027). The FBI is therefore also a core indicator for assessing the condition and restoration of agricultural ecosystems according to the Restoration Regulation. The index, along with other indicators, must improve by 2030, and measures for restoration must be taken to achieve this goal.

(APA/Red)

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