Golden-cheeked Warbler by Greg Lavaty

Gulf Coast Bird Observatory’s Tropical Forest Forever Fund

Here’s a partial list of precious birds that owe a debt of gratitude to Gulf Coast Bird Observatory’s Tropical Forest Forever Fund (GCBO—TFFF):

-The Critically Endangered Blue-billed Curassow  and wintering Cerulean and Bay-breasted Warblers in Colombia; the Long-whiskered Owlet, Ochre-fronted Antipitta, and numerous neotropical migrants in Peru;

-Golden-cheeked, Kentucky and Canada Warblers, and the threatened Great Curassow in Guatemala; 

-and the Critically Endangered Stresemann’s Bristlefront and threatened Banded Cotinga in Brazil’s Atlantic Rainforest.  

These and numerous other threatened or declining birds are better off than they would have been without GCBO’s Tropical Forest Forever Fund, which, since 2008 has helped ABC and our partners acquire more than 9,000 acres of priority habitat in Central and South America.

In the tropics, farming, cattle ranching, logging, and forest fires are a major threat to forests that harbor rare birds. GCBO’s Tropical Forest Forever Fund has helped bird conservation groups respond by buying critically important land, which in turn has greatly expanded the Latin American Bird Reserve Network. The acquired habitats in this network also protect a wealth of other biodiversity including endangered monkeys, bears, amphibians and reptiles.

ABC is deeply grateful to GCBO’s Tropical Forest Forever Fund for its pivotal help in expanding reserves that are the winter homes of vast numbers of the migratory birds that fly to North America to breed.