Many thousands of birdwatchers come every year to visit some of the vast wetlands or mountain ranges which hold good populations of bird species that have become extremely rare or even extinct in other parts of their range. During my first holiday in this country in 1984, I was stunned to find untouched natural areas, in the countryside, where a wealth of species could be seen.
Birds are excellent indicators of the overall health of the environment.
Birds occur in all habitat types, and more is understood of their distribution and biology than any other group of animals or plants. By monitoring birds we can often understand or even predict the effects of environmental changes. The first European IBA inventory was published in 1989 and described 2444 sites, of which 79 were within Turkey. Since 1989, my DHKD colleague Murat Yarar and I worked to gather more information on the 79 sites and identify new ones. At the same time, we promoted the conservation of the Turkish IBAs through public awareness campaigns, lobbying for the designation of protected areas, and monitoring developments at IBAs.