The LIFE IP Grassbird Habitats project (2020–2030)

The Climate-Resilient East Atlantic Flyway (CREAF) project is an international collaboration running from 2025 to 2032. It aims to strengthen the resilience of coastal wetlands, migratory waterbirds and the communities that depend on them in the face of climate change and other environmental pressures.

Covering 11 African Flyway countries, CREAF brings together 15 partners, including conservation organisations, research institutes, government agencies and local stakeholders, to improve knowledge, strengthen capacities and support effective conservation action for the benefit of migratory birds. By linking science, management and policy across countries, the project builds on existing efforts to help safeguard a connected network of sites that is vital for both biodiversity and human wellbeing.  

The project monitors coastal waterbird populations and key sites along the East Atlantic Flyway. Coordinated by the Wadden Sea Flyway Initiative, Wetlands International, and BirdLife International, and funded largely by the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature, it brings together 36 countries and more than 13,000 observers.

Using an integrated framework of population, demographic, and environmental monitoring, the project assesses flyway population trends and sizes, and site importance. Core activities include the January waterbird counts under the International Waterbird Census, and environmental assessments through site-based questionnaires. Breeding bird counts are increasingly included, as they are the most effective monitoring period for some species and also help identify important sites. The potential for expanding counts during migration periods is currently being explored.

Capacity building and knowledge sharing are key objectives alongside data collection.

The Innovations in Flyway Monitoring (FLYWAY) initiative improves how migratory birds and their habitats are monitored. Funded by the European Commission’s Technical Support Instrument (TSI), it combines drones, satellite imagery, and modelling with traditional approaches to address knowledge gaps and support decision-making.

Learn more about how FLYWAY applies technology and collaboration to support conservation and inform policy.

The LIFE IP Grassbird Habitats project, funded by the European Union, dedicated to the conservation of wetland and wet grassland bird habitats along the East Atlantic Flyway. Its core aim is to reverse the decline of wet grassland breeding bird populations by improving reproduction rates in the Netherlands and Germany and enhancing return rates from their West African wintering grounds. As the coordinating beneficiary, the Lower Saxony Ministry for the Environment has tasked the State Agency for Bird Conservation (NLWKN) with implementing the project, backed by a multidisciplinary team.

To address gaps in monitoring and habitat management, the project collaborates with national park authorities, NGOs, and academic institutions. It employs measures such as grassland rewetting, predation management, and optimized grazing, alongside field expeditions, capacity-building, and cross-border cooperation, particularly in Senegal, to integrate scientific research, habitat rehabilitation, and community engagement. The ultimate goal is to develop and implement sustainable, flyway-scale conservation strategies to protect declining wet grassland bird populations. For more information and project outputs, visit: www.grassbirdhabitats.eu.

Reliable monitoring data are crucial for the early detection of worrying population trends in waterbird species and for making informed decisions on necessary conservation measures. However, the recently finished FLYWAY project identified considerable gaps in existing monitoring data, both in terms of coverage and depth, which hampers our understanding of the drivers of population declines. With the new ‘FLY2Coastal Wetlands’ project, funded by the European Commission’s Directorate General for Structural Reform Support under its Technical Support Instrument, the Wadden Sea Flyway Initiative partners aim to enhance environmental monitoring of coastal wetlands along the European part of the East Atlantic Flyway. Comparisons of national monitoring schemes in Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and Spain provide the baseline information for the development of an integrated environmental monitoring framework that allows prioritisation of future national monitoring efforts that can also be analysed at a flyway scale.