Southern African countries launch Vulture Safe Zone Alliance and Guidelines to protect scavenging birds

The Vulture is a Patient Bird but also happens to be under serious threat.

To address that, conservation organizations from six Southern African countries have now launched the Vulture Safe Zone Alliance to protect the species.

The alliance has also debuted the Vulture Safe Zone Guidelines (VSZG) to that effect.

The development marks an important step towards protecting vultures in the region.   

Vultures, essential for maintaining ecological balance by scavenging on decaying carcasses, have experienced alarming declines.

For instance, the African vulture populations have plummeted by between 80 percent and 97 percent over the last five decades.

These declines are driven by intentional and unintentional poisoning linked to belief-based use, poisoning of mega herbivores and human-wildlife conflict respectively, and collisions and electrocutions with infrastructure such as powerlines and habitat loss, among others.     

Today, six of Africa’s eleven vulture species are classified as Endangered or Critically Endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, highlighting the urgent need for coordinated conservation action across the continent.       

The Vulture Safe Zone Alliance (VSZA) defines Vulture Safe Zones (VSZs) as areas not only within but also outside of formal protected precincts where land users, communities, conservation organizations, government agencies and other stakeholders work together to identify, address and reduce threats, thus creating safer environments for the scavenging birds.

These landscapes include communal areas, private land, conservancies, agricultural areas and other managed landscapes that are important for vulture feeding, breeding and movement.  

Because vultures routinely travel hundreds of kilometres in search of food and regularly cross international borders, conservation efforts in one country can only be effective if supported by similar actions in neighbouring countries.

Currently, Vulture Safe Zones (VSZ)s cover over 2,000,000 hectares of land in Southern Africa.                              

The Vulture Safe Zone Alliance brings together nine conservation organisations, that is, BirdLife International, and its partners (BirdLife Botswana, BirdLife South Africa, BirdWatch Zambia, BirdLife Zimbabwe, Nature Tanzania, Wildlife and Environmental Society of Malawi), Raptors Botswana and The Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT).

Together, these organisations will work to strengthen collaboration, share knowledge and promote aligned practical approaches for establishing and managing Vulture Safe Zones across southern Africa.    

The VSZA aims to strengthen the viability of Vulture Safe Zones, linking safe spaces across landscapes, marking a new phase in regional collaboration for vulture conservation.

Furthermore, the newly launched Vulture Safe Zone Guidelines, developed as a collaborative effort between the organizations, provide a common framework for identifying, establishing and monitoring these areas.

The guidelines will support partners and stakeholders in reducing threats, improving awareness and promoting actions that allow vultures to safely move, feed and breed across landscapes.

Lovelater Sebele, Senior Vulture Conservation Officer-Southern Africa, BirdLife International said:

“Vultures do not recognise borders, and neither should our conservation efforts.

The Vulture Safe Zone Alliance brings together organisations across Southern Africa to turn this shared understanding into coordinated action on the ground.

By connecting local action, sharing knowledge and promoting common approaches, the alliance will help create safer landscapes for vultures across the region and strengthen our collective response to the threats driving their decline.”

Moses Selebatso, Director, Grants and Strategic Engagements, Raptors Botswana said,

“Botswana is home to five vulture species. The country is in the centre of the SADC states and has a lot of land designated for conservation of biodiversity.

However, protected areas alone cannot provide the security that vultures need across the landscapes they use.

Establishment of VSZ outside of the protected areas and regular education and awareness engagement will be instrumental in saving these vultures in the region.”

Danielle du Toit, Field Officer: Birds of Prey, Endangered Wildlife Trust said:

“The Alliance aims to strengthen the viability of Vulture Safe Zones, a crucial yet often overlooked tool that complements and supports other conservation efforts.

Vultures do not distinguish between protected or unprotected land, and neither should our conservation efforts.

As such, VSZs provide a practical way for conservation organisations to work with land users across these landscapes to reduce threats and create safer spaces for vultures.

The establishment of the Vulture Safe Zone Alliance marks an important step towards making this approach more connected and effective across Southern Africa.

It is the collaboration and shared goal between various stakeholders, including land users, that will result in impactful and sustainable conservation of these critically important species.”