Clearly action is required if we are to conserve our seabirds into a new millennium. Seabird conservation issues need therefore to be addressed globally, which led BirdLife International to establish a Seabird Conservation Programme in 1997. To facilitate existing, and promote new, initiatives to reduce the incidental mortality of seabirds by fisheries, particularly in respect of longlining. To establish a network of BirdLife partners and others to influence global and regional policies affecting seabirds. To examine the practicability of addressing bird conservation issues at a global level, taking seabirds as a model and recognizing the difficulties in regulation and enforcement on international waters.
Seabirds face a multitude of threats, both on land and at sea.
The current revision being undertaken by BirdLife International lists 99 species. Not only are these irreplaceable birds global assets, they are also reliable ecological indicators of the health of the environment in which they live. Conserving seabirds will contribute to marine conservation in general and to conserving the world's biodiversity. Currently, the most critical conservation problem facing seabirds globally is thought to be the mortality caused by longline fisheries as albatrosses and petrels swallow baited hooks and drown. As many as half a dozen species, including one of the world's largest flying birds, the Wandering Albatross, may be threatened with extinction by longlining because reproductive rates are low in these species and cannot compensate for this additional mortality.