CAF launches project to protect bird migratory flows in the Americas

The funds earmarked by CAF—development bank of Latin America—will be used to design the project’s financing mechanisms, to build a framework for issuing an Americas Flyways theme bond, and to devise a strategy for identifying, mapping, and prioritizing projects in the Americas Flyways portfolio.

The partnership between BirdLife International, the National Audubon Society and CAF, announced at the COP15 on Biodiversity in Montreal, represents an unprecedented investment in bird and biodiversity preservation in Latin America and the Caribbean. Both COP15 and the recent COP27 on Climate Change in Egypt have called for effective responses to the challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change.

There are currently at least 559 endangered bird species in Latin America and the Caribbean, and since 1970, North America has lost 3 billion birds. Faced with this situation, the Migration Route Initiative of the Americas is a hemispheric response to effectively address the biodiversity loss and climate change crisis through concrete nature- and community-based solutions.

“The partnership represents the largest investment ever made in bird conservation in Latin America and the Caribbean and will help integrate the region, countries and communities, from south to north, and migratory birds and their flyways. This is one of our flagship initiatives to move forward in our goal of becoming the green bank of Latin America and the Caribbean,” said Alicia Montalvo, Climate Action and Positive Biodiversity Manager at CAF.

The initiative calls for identifying more than thirty critical landscapes and seascapes along bird migration routes in the Americas for conservation, restoration and management by local partners, communities, and indigenous peoples. U.S. migratory routes cover North, Central and South America and the Caribbean, and stretch across 35 countries, from the Arctic Circle in the north to Tierra del Fuego in the south.

The Americas are home to three of the eight major bird migration routes in the world, making this region critical to the planet’s biodiversity and the response to climate change. However, stopover and wintering sites along these routes are vanishing at an alarming rate.

The initiative builds on the innovative foundations launched in 2021 by BirdLife International, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the East Asian Australasian Flyway Partnership.