Goals and Strategies
The EGCPJV partnership was formed in 2006 to protect and restore bird populations in the western portion of the Southeastern Coastal Plain Bird Conservation Region (BCR 27), including the Florida panhandle, much of Alabama and Mississippi, portions of western Tennessee and Kentucky, and southeastern Louisiana. This region is known for supporting an incredible array of species and covers 63 million acres of diverse habitats, including pine- dominated forests, deciduous forests, native prairies and grasslands, and forested and coastal wetlands.
Over 300 bird species depend upon these habitats for breeding, migration, and overwintering, with at least 180 species known to breed in the region. The need to conserve these systems is urgent and clear.
A Conservation Need
The 2019 3 Billion Birds Lost publication found that 27% of landbirds have been lost since 1970, with grassland birds incurring the highest proportional losses in abundance. Population growth and urbanization, changes in timberland ownership and management, and potential impacts of climate change threaten habitats. These changes have reduced habitat connectivity, altered hydrology, and restricted the use of important management tools such as prescribed fire. Successful conservation of birds and their habitats require our partnership to integrate science with on-the-ground habitat conservation work and effective communications. In the face of numerous challenges, collaborative conservation through partnerships such as ours can activate multi-faceted, holistic, and effective conservation to benefit birds and additional species of wildlife.
The EGCPJV partnership implements our goals and strategies by catalyzing and activating bird conservation in the region through coalition building, impactful growth, accountability, and commitment. We use scientific products to maximize conservation benefits to the birds and to protect their habitats and communities. Since our formation, we have completed the East Gulf Coastal Plain Landbird and Waterbird Conservation Plans, which identify high priority bird species. Our habitat priorities include upland hardwood and pine-hardwood woodlands and forests, eastern interior grasslands, pine dominated woodlands, and savannas, freshwater and coastal wetlands, and eastern scrub shrub.
We do this work through active partnerships that conserve priority habitats and species, strategic science tools, and sharing our stories, plans, and tools with our community.
Partnerships & Conservation
We identified habitat priorities based on threats to priority bird species, the importance of each habitat to partner organizations, and how much of each habitat’s total extent is included within the East Gulf Coastal Plain.
View The plan