How to Get Involved in Partners in Flight
Partners in Flight is welcome to anyone interested in the science or implementation of bird conservation. We have participants from many sectors, including government agencies, non-profit organizations, academia (students and professors), community organizations, birding clubs, and industry (including consultants and forest products companies).
PIF is open to anyone who wants to participate, and it’s a forum where we:
- Share experiences/establish partnerships
- Collaborate on projects
- Coordinate conservation actions
- Identify challenges collectively, synthesize information, and generate solutions
The easiest way to become involved is to join one of the groups listed below. Here you can find partners with conservation or research interests similar to your own, or, working where you do. Each of these groups has a different focus (described below). You can reach out to any group coordinator with questions about the group or in general about PIF, those contacts can be found here.
To join a group:
1) Sign up for the e-mail listserv and you will begin receiving regular announcements about the working group activities. These include announcements on larger group gatherings, job announcements, publications, and general questions.
2) Most groups have monthly meetings. The purpose of these meetings varies amongst the groups, but are a great way to be more involved. E-mail the group coordinator and they will add you to the calendar invite for the regular meetings and arrange to introduce you.
The PIF Groups
Below are links to each of the groups and a short description of the main activities that occur within each of these groups.
The Western Working Group brings together people from across the Pacific Flyway (from Alaska to Chile) to promote and implement Bird Conservation Plans, develop land managers’ guides, highlight and support research and monitoring needs, and develop new collaborations and networks for effective bird conservation.
The Eastern Working Group brings together bird conservationists from Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. These people work together to facilitate coordinated, regional-scale implementation of research, monitoring, and management activities.
The Boreal Working Group has representatives from all the major federal land and resource managers in Alaska and northwestern Canada, state and provincial agencies, universities, Alaska Native corporations, and local environmental consulting firms. These participants work together to establish statewide bird inventory and monitoring programs, conduct research on northern bird populations, provide information about birds to land managers in Alaska, educate people about bird conservation, and share information about our birds with people who live where boreal birds migrate and winter.
The International Science Committee is an open forum of scientists from universities, NGOs, and agencies in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Central America dedicated to advancing scientific concepts and approaches for landbird conservation at range-wide and regional scales. The Science Committee develops and maintains all aspects of the PIF Avian Conservation Assessment Database and the Population Estimates Database.
In addition to the Working Groups, there is a PIF Steering Committee. The Steering Committee is comprised primarily of representatives from organizations and agencies that provide guidance for PIF activities and communicate to the larger bird conservation community about PIF activities. If you’re interested in learning more about the Steering Committee, please contact the PIF Steering Committee co-chairs.
Other Bird Conservation Groups
PIF works with many other bird-conservation groups to achieve its goal and move toward the recovery of bird populations. Check out our Bird Conservation Engagement Resource to learn of additional ways that you can engage in bird conservation actions.