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Partners in Flight (PIF) Awards recognize exceptional contributions to the field of landbird conservation in the Americas in the categories of Leadership, Investigations, Public Awareness, Stewardship, and the David N. Pashley Lifetime Achievement Award. This slideshow was presented by PIF Coordinator Bob Ford during the 2020 North American Ornithological Conference.

Forests for the Birds Webinar Series conclusion – Building on the previous 11 webinars in this series, Bill Uihlein explored the continued rapid evolution of conservation that is shaping the emergence of new Ways of Working influenced by the past, current, and futureset of living relationships and the collective pattern of behaviors working towards shared goals.

John Alexander with the Klamath Bird Observatory discusses partnerships for monitoring the success of bird conservation efforts and using birds as indicators of habitat suitability and conservation success. John will show how managing for a suite of bird species provides results that can be measured using the response of focal species to habitat management.

Tony D’Amato describes ecological forestry and how it mimics large and small scale natural disturbance and how it is a powerful tool that can be used to benefit bird species associated with all seral stages. Tony discusses silvicultural considerations for early successional habitat/disturbance dependent species like Swainson’s, Kirtland’s, golden-winged warblers, and Bachman’s sparrow, etc.

Frank Lake shared many components of indigenous and traditional ecological knowledge and how they are used in bird friendly forest management. Frank also discussed and showed traditional regalia and described their importance to indigenous culture and ceremonies.

Darren Sleep of SFI discusses how Forest Certification is being used on corporate lands to create and maintain practices that benefit birds and biodiversity conservation. Darren Miller addressed how large private forest landowners can enhance bird diversity and abundance through purposeful forest management decisions.

Amanda Mahaffey of the Forest Stewards Guild discusses the significant success of forestry for the birds programs in a number of states including Vermont, Michigan and others including North Carolina’s Forest Landbird Legacy Program. The focus has been on translating bird life history and needs into silvicultural prescriptions made by foresters and incorporated in forest management planning.

Speaker Randy Wilson of the USFWS discussed how the ecosystem based approach to bird conservation shifted the conservation paradigm from a resource based, opportunistic approach, towards a science-based, strategic pursuit of sustainable landscapes. That approach however requires managing for population sustainability at multiple spatial scales and then translating bird habitat needs into forest management prescriptions.

Speaker Jeff Larkin of Indiana University of PA and the American Bird Conservancy discussed the importance of implementing forest bird conservation at biologically meaningful scales both spatially and temporally. He describes stepping down landscape scale bird conservation plans and strategies to the forest stand level.

Bob Ford, who is the USFWS – National PIF Coordinator, discusses the importance of landscape scale conservation design in the context of how landscape influences stand level management decisions. He explains how the “2016 Partners in Flight Plan” is a blueprint for regional forest bird conservation across the country.