Audubon’s Water initiative will focus on landscapes where both water quantity and water quality are paramount to birds’ survival. Affecting public water policies is one key aspect of our work, but policy alone won’t be enough to address these challenging issues. Audubon and its partners will engage the public on water-management and water-quality issues; restore habitats along rivers, wetlands, and deltas; and explore market based solutions that contribute to the achievement of our water goals.

Theory of Change

Audubon will focus its technical and policy expertise and bring our network to bear to influence water-management decisions; these should balance the needs of birds, people, and economies in targeted rivers, lakes, and deltas across the United States. By directing our resources and involving our technical experts and network, we will improve water quality and increase water flows to enhance the functioning of habitats across priority landscapes.

How to Get There

Audubon will:

• Expand our knowledge of water needs for birds and other wildlife, and establish a solid foundation of information on the impacts of water scarcity and water pollution on birds.
• Strengthen the Audubon network of members and partners to advance balanced water-management decisions that benefit birds, habitat, and people.
• Engage our conservation team and network in on-the-ground restoration actions that support our water goals.
• Develop and advance market-based mechanisms to provide flexibility in water-management decisions.
• Expand international partnerships to address water issues on a hemispheric scale.

Measurable Goals

• 20 percent increase in protected or managed habitat acres that are important wintering, breeding, or stopover sites for birds in key landscapes.
• One million acres of land managed, restored, and protected in critical watersheds.
• International, federal, and state policy actions that ensure adequate flows to critical ecosystems, including the Colorado River Delta, the Salton Sea, the Mississippi River and Delta, the Great Lakes, and the Greater Everglades.
• 20 percent increase in federal and state funding or incentives to enhance water management and restoration action.
• 250,000 people engaged in advocacy on water conservation measures.
• 25,000 households participating in a new native habitat/xeriscaping program designed to reduce water consumption by 300 million gallons.
• 75 chapters and 10 Audubon sanctuaries and nature centers engaged in advocacy, education, and on-the-ground actions.

Climate change threatens the birds we see every day.

Our warming world poses profound challenges to conservation. The effects of climate change are already apparent—from habitat loss to devastating breaks in the delicate links that connect birds, migration, and food sources.

The Threat

Audubon’s Birds and Climate Change Report, published in 2014, confirmed that climate change is the single greatest threat to North American birds. Seven years in the making, the report warns that 314 North American bird species could lose more than half of their current ranges by 2080 due to rising temperatures. (For more on the methodology, and links to peer-reviewed articles published from this research, visit the FAQ page or read the full report.)

For those of us who care deeply about birds, from the Wood Thrush in eastern forests to the Burrowing Owl in western grasslands, this is a warning call that demands urgent action.

Audubon’s Solution

The situation is indeed dire—more than half of bird species on the continent are at risk—but there are reasons for hope. By identifying which birds are most sensitive to climate change and where those changes are most likely to occur, this research provides a roadmap for future conservation and advocacy efforts.

Audubon’s Climate Initiative, the organizational response to this threat, taps into its members’ love and commitment for birds to build population resilience and demand solutions to slow the pace of warming. Audubon is encouraging its members to take steps to address the climate change threat in their backyards, in their communities, in the Important Bird Areas (IBAs) near their homes, and in the state houses.

That requires a diverse network of climate activists with a shared value—a love and appreciation of birds. Take a look at how Audubon’s network of chapters, centers, state offices, and individual activists is helping birds adapt and pushing for solutions.

Audubon is committed to transforming our communities into places where birds flourish.

Where birds thrive, people prosper. From urban centers to rural towns, each community can provide important habitat for native birds. In turn, birds offer us a richer, more beautiful, and healthful place to live. 

The Threat

Over the past century, urbanization has taken, fragmented, and transformed ecologically productive land with sterile lawns and exotic ornamental plants. We’ve introduced walls of glass, toxic pesticides, and domestic predators. The human-dominated landscape no longer supports functioning ecosystems or provides healthy places for birds.

The Solution

Each community has a unique ecological and cultural story to tell. Creating Bird-Friendly Communities is Audubon’s commitment to the sustainability of our urban, suburban, and rural places. We can restore and reconnect these places. We can reestablish the ecological functions of our cities and towns. We can provide an essential, safe habitat for birds. With simple acts of hope, everyone can help make their community bird-friendly.

Plants for Birds

By simply choosing native plants for our yards and public spaces, we can restore vital habitat for birds in our communities and help them adapt and survive in the face of climate change. Audubon’s Plants for Birds program is designed to enable anyone to have a positive impact by planting for birds, right where they live. Visit the native plants database to create a customized list of plants native to your area, get connected to your local Audubon and native plant nurseries, and help us get 1 million plants in the ground for birds. 

Bird-Friendly Buildings 

Glass and lights present major hazards to birds, killing hundreds of millions of birds each year. Birds hit buildings at all hours during the day and night. At night migrating birds can be distracted by bright lights in our cities. During the day the problem is reflection or other confusing aspects of glass. Audubon chapters, centers and programs across the country are working to make buildings safer for birds—both day and night. You can learn more about our Lights Out project here, and existing Lights Out programs here. 

Avian Architecture: Providing Good Homes for Birds

From Prothonotary Warblers and Chimney Swifts to Osprey and Burrowing Owls, many species of birds can be given a better chance to survive and thrive through a little assistance from structures we build—birdhouses, roosting towers, nest platforms, and artificial burrows. For some species, these structures tip the scales back in their favor, reducing declines in populations and restoring species to places they once inhabited.

Many of America’s most beloved and biologically rich landscapes are in grave danger. From the Arctic Slope in Alaska to the Mississippi Delta, and from the Northeast’s Long Island Sound to the wetlands of the Everglades, the power of Important Bird Areas (IBAs) cannot be overstated. Audubon is leading the way to protect these iconic places and the birds that depend on them, and mobilizing our network of chapters to act as stewards.

The Threat

Birds depend on a diverse range of habitats, and the threats that confront them are equally varied. Grasslands are being replaced by residential development. Forests disappear through the overharvesting of timber. Badly planned energy development has grim consequences for many bird species and other wildlife.

Audubon’s Solution

As the U.S. partner for BirdLife International, Audubon spearheads an ambitious effort to identify, monitor, and protect the most important places for birds. We also collaborate with 19 international partners to extend a web of protection throughout the Western Hemisphere. To date Audubon has identified more than 2,700 IBAs covering almost 400 million acres of public and private lands in the United States. Among them are high-priority Global IBAs—places like New York City’s Jamaica Bay, areas within Alaska’s Arctic Slope, and coastal bird sanctuaries in Texas.

Each priority site requires a specific conservation plan—and that’s a critical piece of the work Audubon does. To implement these plans, Audubon will work with all key stakeholders—landowners, government agencies at every level, chapters, and communities. A tiered program will guide the scope and level of involvement of the Audubon network, focusing on where conservation actions are possible and where protections can be secured, habitats restored, or threats reduced. This approach works: IBA status is now formally factored into state agency land-use planning in a number of states, including New York, Minnesota, and Washington. IBAs are also recognized by major utility grid planners and federal agencies. This pillar of Audubon’s overall approach to conservation is both powerful and simple: By identifying and protecting the most important places for birds, we can save species and preserve our natural heritage.

Audubon maintains a complete database of U.S. IBAs that that can be accessed here. Or browse the map below. Red dots signify Globally Important IBAs, blue dots indicate Continental IBAs, and green dots represent U.S. State IBAs. 

You can read more on Audubon's IBA program here. 

Curious about how you can help protect an IBA near you? 
Download a copy of Cooking Up Conservation Success: Recipes Across the U.S. Important Bird Areas Network!

Protecting and restoring coastlines will strengthen populations of shorebirds while preserving the places they need to survive throughout their lives. The work needed to accomplish this goal will also protect coastal communities against the threat of sea-level rise due to a changing climate. Audubon’s Coasts initiative focuses on the most threatened and iconic bird species that rely on coastal habitats—estuaries, islands, beaches, and the marine environment—throughout the hemisphere. Audubon’s work will target the most important breeding, stopover, and wintering sites in each flyway for 16 flagship bird species. These actions will both stabilize and enhance the populations of those flagship species while simultaneously benefiting at least 375 other species that rely on similar habitats.

Protecting coastlines throughout the hemisphere is key to Audubon's conservation strategy. Click here to find out more about some of our coastal policy work with the Coastal Barriers Resource Act. Want to help us protect vital coastal habitats? Read about our Coastal Stewardship Toolkit and volunteer to be a beach steward today!

Theory of Change

By focusing on the biggest threats to 16 flagship bird species and the places they depend on, we will maximize our conservation impact and help build resilient coastlines. Those 16 flagship species represent at least 375 others as well as the ecosystems upon which they depend.

How to Get There

Audubon will:

• Finalize baseline measures for 16 flagship species and habitats and identify threats at all key sites.
• Reduce predator and human disturbance on breeding and wintering grounds through expanded coastal stewardship programs.
• Restore wetlands, beaches, salt marshes, and tidal flats through on-the-ground conservation.
• Pioneer new coastal resilience solutions that protect and enhance habitats critical to birds and that help protect coastal communities and infrastructure.
• Mobilize our network to advocate for increased protections for seabirds, shorebirds, and coastal habitats, as well as funding for coastal conservation.

Measurable Goals

• Increase or stabilize the popula tions of 16 flagship bird species by reducing threats at 500 priority sites.
• Grow the coastal stewardship program to enlist 10,000 volunteers and partner with 130 coastal Audubon chapters, our BirdLife International partners, and other organizations to support conservation at the 500 priority sites.
• Implement and influence climate adaptation strategies to address current and future threats to flagship species by restoring and protecting 300,000 acres of coastal wetlands and marshes.
• Strengthen coastal safeguards and land-management policies to protect and promote resilient, high-quality coastal habitats.
• Advance public policies to better manage coastal forage fisheries that are critically important food sources to our flagship species.
• Reduce threats to seabirds and shorebirds from oil and gas development and shipping accidents on the Arctic coast and in adjacent marine waters.
• With partners, establish a uniform, science-based approach to map priority sites, identify threats, and measure the biological response to conservation actions across the hemisphere in order to evaluate progress against these goals.