Abstract
Research Highlight discussing:
Ng et al. (2026). A call for evidence‐based conservation: securing the future of waterbirds along the East Asian‐Australasian Flyway.
Journal of Applied Ecology
, 63, e70389.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1365‐2664.70389
. Migratory species are declining globally. This challenge is particularly urgent in the East Asian‐Australasian Flyway (EAAF), where many waterbird populations are decreasing, and where rapid human development overlaps with key habitats. It is timely to evaluate whether conservation practices are effective across the flyway covering the full annual cycle. Ng et al. adapted the Pressure‐State‐Response framework to connect practitioner‐identified threats, site‐level conservation actions and scientific evidence on conservation effectiveness. Using a multilingual questionnaire and the Conservation Evidence database, they showed that habitat loss and human disturbance were the highest‐ranked concerns among managers, but several widely used actions, including vegetation management, water‐level control, food‐habitat enhancement and bird hides, were supported by mixed, indirect or absent evidence. Furthermore, there is a limited proportion of assessed Conservation Evidence that included EAAF‐based evidence, limiting their transferability to local management decisions. The study highlights the need to better connect science, policy and frontline action in flyway conservation. Future implementation should prioritize regionally relevant tests of management actions, strengthen communication among researchers and practitioners and expand evidence databases to better represent EAAF species, sites and management contexts. More broadly, conservation planning should adopt a collaborative flyway‐network perspective that accounts for spatially heterogeneous threats, interactions among drivers and cumulative effects across the annual cycle.