BIRDS are vital. They are landscape creators, habitat regulators and pollinators, as well as treasured wildlife. But they are under threat everywhere in the world and, without protection, their future could be very grim indeed.
Migratory birds are a case in point. Their arrival and departure dates have fascinated people for millennia. What is evident is that a typical migratory bird relies on many different locations throughout its annual cycle for food, rest and breeding. This is crucial for survival. Our activity increasingly intersects with migration paths, with impacts ranging from landscape changes to noise, light and air pollution.
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of migratory birds are inadequately protected on their journeys around the world. Most such species have declined in past decades, as a result of the likes of habitat loss and hunting. These birds and their habitats need safeguarding and taking legal action may be our best hope of doing this. My colleagues at the environmental law charity ClientEarth and I are currently involved in a case that shows why.
The Tagus estuary in Portugal is one of the world鈥檚 most important wetlands and more than 300,000 birds regularly winter there, including waterfowl, ducks, waders, flamingos and gulls. While the Portuguese government recognises this is the country鈥檚 most important wetland, it also plans to build a new airport right on top of it called Montijo airport.
While this will destroy part of the wetland, the problem goes beyond the footprint of the airport. In order to reduce the possibility of collisions between flocks of birds and aircraft, you have to scare birds away from a much wider area. In 2003, the UK government discounted the possibility of an airport at .
We believe the project in Portugal fails to comply with both EU and national environmental laws that safeguard protected sites against development that risks serious harm to ecological health. So we are teaming up with SPEA, a Portuguese bird protection organisation, and other NGOs to . We don鈥檛 take such action lightly and only use it as a last resort when all other elements of environmental governance have failed.
We are bringing this case to protect bird species from around the world that depend on this unique habitat for survival and to raise the voices of all who stand with us. We will argue that the airport would not only impact migratory birds that winter in the estuary, but also those that use the Tagus as a migratory stopover before travelling beyond Portugal. Additionally, increased air travel will affect Portugal鈥檚 ability to meet its obligations under the Paris climate agreement, while the wetlands themselves are important carbon sinks and vital to climate adaptation and mitigation.
A victory would mean the safeguarding of a vast, vulnerable protected area and a future in which the birds that use it can thrill our descendants. The first challenge has been submitted to the courts and we currently await the legal response to it from the Portuguese authorities.
In the past decade, we have helped to stop illegal logging of the Bialowieza Forest in Poland, taken the UK government to court and won three times over illegal levels of air pollution, won a world-first climate risk case over the construction of Europe鈥檚 last coal-fired power station in Poland and helped to launch a climate justice case against the Australian government for failing to mitigate the effects of global warming in the Torres Strait.
Failure to protect ecologically important sites will cause irreversible losses to wildlife and damage to our climate. Environmental thinking should never be an afterthought.
