The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation organized a meeting in Guatemala last year that brought together people from the environmental community and forest ministries throughout the golden-cheeked's range, in addition to several North American agencies and citizen organizations. The meeting focused on several of the problem areas for the species, including plans for further studies and possibly for establishing additional protected areas for golden-cheeked warblers in their wintering grounds. There are also an increasing number of people in North America who are paying attention to the plight of neotropical migratory birds including the golden-cheeked warbler simply because of their interest in birds. There's just a sense that there are not as many out there as there used to be. There are still a lot of issues that scientists are looking at with respect to migratory bird decline.
Some scientists debate whether neotropical migratory birds are declining as a group.
Other scientists believe that the general decline of migrants is clear. But in any case, more research is required to find good solutions to address these problems. And to complicate matters, in Latin America, human welfare is a major factor in the threats to these birds. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of the habitat destruction results from subsistence farming, as people struggle to support themselves and their families from the land. These people are desperate they are cutting farms on 45-degree slopes.