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Southern African conservation groups launch Vulture Safe Zone Alliance to protect endangered species – EnviroNews
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Nine conservation organisations across six Southern African countries have joined forces to launch the Vulture Safe Zone Alliance (VSZA) and new guidelines aimed at strengthening regional efforts to halt the alarming decline of Africa’s vulture populations.
The launch marks a significant step towards creating safer landscapes for vultures across Southern Africa, where poisoning, habitat loss, collisions with infrastructure and other human-induced threats continue to drive several species towards extinction.
Vultures play a critical role in maintaining healthy ecosystems by scavenging on animal carcasses and preventing the spread of disease. However, African vulture populations have declined by between 80 and 97 per cent over the past five decades.
The decline has been attributed to both intentional and unintentional poisoning, including poisoning associated with belief-based use of vultures, the poisoning of large herbivores and human-wildlife conflict. Other major threats include collisions and electrocutions from power infrastructure, habitat loss and other forms of human disturbance.
Today, six of Africa’s 11 vulture species are classified as Endangered or Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List, underlining the urgent need for stronger and coordinated conservation action.
The newly launched Vulture Safe Zone Alliance defines Vulture Safe Zones (VSZs) as areas both within and outside formal protected areas where communities, land users, conservation organisations, government agencies and other stakeholders work together to identify, address and reduce threats to vultures.
Such areas include communal lands, private properties, conservancies, agricultural landscapes and other managed environments that are important for vulture feeding, breeding and movement.
The approach recognises the fact that vultures travel hundreds of kilometres in search of food and frequently cross international borders, making isolated conservation interventions insufficient.
Currently, Vulture Safe Zones cover more than two million hectares of land across Southern Africa.
The alliance brings together BirdLife International and its regional partners — BirdLife Botswana, BirdLife South Africa, BirdWatch Zambia, BirdLife Zimbabwe, Nature Tanzania and the Wildlife and Environmental Society of Malawi — alongside Raptors Botswana and the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT).
Together, the nine organisations will work to deepen collaboration, share knowledge and promote coordinated practical approaches for establishing and managing Vulture Safe Zones across the region.
The VSZA aims to strengthen the effectiveness and long-term viability of these safe areas by linking conservation spaces across landscapes and creating a more coordinated regional response to threats facing vultures.
A key component of the initiative is the newly launched Vulture Safe Zone Guidelines, developed collaboratively by the participating organisations.
The guidelines provide a common framework for identifying, establishing and monitoring Vulture Safe Zones and are expected to support conservation partners and other stakeholders in reducing threats, improving awareness and promoting conditions that allow vultures to move, feed and breed safely across landscapes.
Lovelater Sebele, Senior Vulture Conservation Officer for Southern Africa at BirdLife International, said the new alliance reflects the need to match the cross-border movements of vultures with equally coordinated conservation action.
“Vultures do not recognise borders, and neither should our conservation efforts,” Sebele said.
“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 of Grants and Strategic Engagements at Raptors Botswana, said protected areas alone cannot provide the level of security needed by vultures, which range widely across different landscapes.
“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,” he said.
“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 for Birds of Prey at the Endangered Wildlife Trust, described Vulture Safe Zones as an important but often overlooked conservation tool that can complement existing efforts to protect the birds.
“The Alliance aims to strengthen the viability of Vulture Safe Zones, a crucial yet often overlooked tool that complements and supports other conservation efforts,” she said.
“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.”
Du Toit said the establishment of the alliance represents an important step towards making the Vulture Safe Zone approach more connected and effective throughout Southern Africa.
She added that sustainable conservation outcomes would depend on collaboration among conservation organisations, governments, communities and land users.
“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,” she said.
With vulture populations facing unprecedented pressure across Africa, conservationists say the new regional alliance offers an opportunity to move beyond fragmented interventions towards a coordinated landscape-level approach capable of protecting the birds throughout their vast ranges.
The launch of the Vulture Safe Zone Alliance and its accompanying guidelines is therefore expected to strengthen cooperation across Southern Africa and provide a model for collective action to secure the future of some of the continent’s most threatened and ecologically important birds.
