INTRODUCTION

David N. Pashley¹

Many accomplishments of Partners in Flight planning efforts have been based upon work in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley Physiographic Area (MAV), which has led the country in comprehensive bird conservation planning at the ecoregional level. Because of this leadership, the Cape May Partners in Flight workshop presented the MAV planning process as a case study, to show how bird conservation planning can and should work in other areas.

Of course the ecological foundation and history of the MAV, as well as the conservation challenges and opportunities which the MAV presents, are unique to that area. Some of the planning tools that have been used, the specific objectives that have been developed, and the methods for implementing those objectives may be irrelevant for other ecosystems. However, the conceptual planning process developed for the MAV should be universally applicable. That is, any ecosystem-level Bird Conservation Plan should examine current conditions and the ecological history that created them; identify priority species and habitats; set population and/or habitat objectives; explicitly state assumptions as well as research and monitoring needs; investigate where and how on the landscape the objectives can be met; and begin to explore possibilities for implementation.

The papers presented in this section are based on a series of presentations that summarized this comprehensive planning effort. They cover the ecological foundation upon which the work rests (Brown et al.); the means by which habitat objectives were set for (1) waterfowl and shorebirds (Loesch et al.) and (2) forest birds (Mueller et al.); and the assumptions behind this process and the research and monitoring needs that result from the effort (Twedt et al.).

¹ American Bird Conservancy
   P. O. Box 249
   The Plains, VA 20198