Connecting Separate Conservation Efforts
BirdLife International traces its organizational beginnings to the International Committee for Bird Protection, or ICBP, founded in London in 1922. It did not yet use the name BirdLife International. Participants from the United States, Britain, France, and the Netherlands sought to address the lack of mutual knowledge and coordination among national conservation groups. Bird migration, the bird trade, and marine pollution were difficult to tackle within any one country.
In his 1972 recollection, founder Jean Delacour recorded that Thomas Gilbert Pearson, president of the US National Audubon Society, visited him in France in 1921, subsequently contacting van Tienhoven and Burdet in the Netherlands and Viscount Grey, Percy Lowe, and others in Britain. In June 1922, they met at Mrs. McKenna’s London home, established the committee, and elected Pearson president. Personal connections thus became an organization for sustained cooperation.
National Sections Formed the Network
The committee rested on national sections, rather than delegations of government-appointed ambassadors. Sections brought together information and views on bird protection in their countries, then referred issues requiring cross-border cooperation to the international level. One or more organizations could participate from each country, and people involved in scientific research, agriculture, and hunting also joined the network. The organization itself remained nongovernmental.
An official directory published by the US Department of Agriculture in 1923 already listed representatives of scientific or conservation organizations from Australia, Canada, France, Britain, the Netherlands, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, and the United States, and gave Pearson’s contact address in New York. This contemporary record shows that the founding meeting in London did not mean all daily work was concentrated in Britain, still less that participating governments had jointly established a treaty organization.
Funding and Secretarial Work Gradually Became Separate
Sultana’s institutional history of 1972 notes that Pearson initially bore the main responsibility for organizing the committee’s work and raising its funds. As activities expanded, especially in Europe, Derscheid became European secretary in 1928, followed later by other secretaries. The president’s personal efforts and the network of national sections were important in maintaining connections before professionalization.
These accounts do not provide a corroborable total founding budget for 1922, so later funding levels should not be projected onto the early organization. The official 2022 report identifies the establishment of a professional secretariat in Cambridge in 1980, staffed by a director and secretary, as a turning point after many years of voluntary work. Foundation in 1922 and the creation of a full-time organization in 1980 must be understood separately.
Exchanging Evidence before Promoting Common Rules
Early priorities included the hunting and exploitation of tinamous in Argentina, Australia’s live-bird trade, and threats to egrets, crowned pigeons, and birds-of-paradise from demand for ornamental feathers. The organization placed problems from different regions on a common agenda, urging countries to investigate bird populations and adopt protective measures. This did not give the committee enforcement powers of its own: restrictions on trade or hunting still required local action.
Meetings in Paris in 1923 and Luxembourg in 1925 continued these exchanges. Discussions in 1925 identified shortcomings in the 1902 convention protecting birds useful to agriculture and called for gathering national views on possible amendments. Compiling local evidence into recommendations and promoting them through national sections became a basic method of cooperation. Many years of discussion often separated identifying a problem from government acceptance of rules.
Turning International Initiatives into Local Action
The Malta Ornithological Society’s secretary’s report for February 1971 to January 1972 offers a concrete example of the later network in operation. The society printed 10,000 leaflets on protecting birds of prey, distributed through the police when hunters renewed their licenses. They explained raptors’ ecological role, declining numbers, and the problem of shooting them during migration. Risks facing European birds were translated into material accessible to a local audience.
The society and contributions from the Emergency Appeal for the Protection of Birds of Prey jointly covered the leaflet’s costs. The president’s report in the same issue also explained that the related appeal was conducted in cooperation with the ICBP Birds of Prey Working Group. International connections supplied an agenda and support, while the local organization handled production, liaison, and distribution. Combining finance, research information, and administrative channels came closer to practical conservation than simply announcing an international resolution.
From the Committee to BirdLife International
In 1993, ICBP was reorganized under the name BirdLife International as a partnership of national nature-conservation organizations. This continued the direction of transnational coordination established in 1922, but the later name, professional staff, and global programs should not all be attributed to the founding arrangements.
A 2013 journal editorial by Bennun and Butchart explains that partnership congresses assess progress, exchange experience, and decide future priorities, while Bird Conservation International provides a platform for disseminating conservation research. The organization’s role gradually expanded from personal contacts and exchanges at meetings to joint strategies and cooperation over scientific information. Yet it still depended on local organizations to turn international objectives into action concerning species, habitats, and specific human activities.