Birds | Bio indicators of forest restoration progress

Bio indicators are the species that are used to assess the health of an environment or ecosystem, and they are typically capable of determining environmental integrity through their functions and populations. Bio indicators like birds can be used as a means to follow up the restoration progress. They can also be called as recovery indicator species which are used to measure the recovery rate of an ecosystem. For e.g. the success of any forest restoration programs can be measured using forest birds as recovery indicator. Forest bird’s requirements are specific. For example; food, temperature, rainfall, conducive habitat, season of the year and abundant vegetation cover. Therefore, their presence indicates a satisfied environment. There are many benefits of using forest birds as indicator species as they are easy to detect and their presence is easy to observe in the field because of their plumage and calls.

This bio assessment technique can also be applied in the forest restoration project of Eden Reforestation Projects. The presence of various species of birds in the plantation sites are important as they are considered to be early responders to the to the return of ecological processes, indicating if forest health and ecosystem functioning are improving following restoration efforts.

During the community interactions in Jhapa and Morang plantation sites, people shared their experience of sighting many beautiful birds in and around plantation sites. They also said the sighting of birds were very less in the past. This clearly inform that plantation and greenery environment has contributed in biodiversity restoration. Therefore, we can, assess the birds’ diversity, abundance and species richness in different plantation sites with time intervals in those actively restored sites that becomes valuable way to further understand responses of wildlife to such conservation efforts. Thus this program plays the crucial role in conserving biodiversity and those species again can be used as a strong tool to measure the restoration progress.

Black hooded oriole photographed in Srijana CF, Morang

CF*- Community Forest