This Partners in Flight plan revision is a guide to landbird conservation in the U.S. and Canada over the next 10 years. It presents new assessments and tools as well as recommendations to address continental threats, reverse long-term population declines, and prevent landbirds from becoming at risk.

This 2016 Plan Revision documents widespread declines in populations of many of the 448 species of landbirds in the U.S. and Canada—a foreboding indicator that the health of ecosystems upon which we all depend is being degraded. Although we have made much progress over the past 20 years, the daunting task of conserving several hundred landbird species across vast and varied landscapes under diverse ownership requires unprecedented levels of cooperation among the public, private, and industrial sectors.

In 2004, Partners in Flight (PIF) published the first North American Landbird Conservation Plan (NALCP, Rich et al.), presenting the results of a comprehensive landbird species vulnerability assessment for the U.S. and Canada. The 2004 NALCP presented a Watch List that identified the species of highest conservation concern, along with a summary of their status, monitoring needs, and the first estimates of population size, leading to bold continental population objectives. Compelling new science that refines the biological foundation of our conservation indicators and objectives, combined with new opportunities for conservation throughout the full life-cycle of these species, prompted us to revise and update the Plan.

This 2016 Plan Revision presents four new and updated tools for bird conservation:

• Extinction Risk models that convey quantitative measures of urgency;
• Responsibility assignments for continental Watch List species scaled to Joint Ventures and Bird Conservation Regions (BCR);
• Full life-cycle analysis of year-round eBird data to identify areas of greatest importance to migrants in the non-breeding season; and
• Species assessment scores updated with improved access to the associated PIF database.

We intend this 2016 Plan Revision to:

• Refine and update the relative vulnerability assessment of 448 species of North American landbirds;
• Present new scientific assessments and tools to integrate into range-wide and full life-cycle conservation implementation; and
• Deliver recommendations to advance high priority landbird conservation actions over the next 10 years.

We encourage:

• Conservation practitioners to implement and evaluate conservation actions to achieve the continental landbird population objectives presented in this Plan Revision;
• Leaders and decision makers to guide policy and allocate resources to benefit landbird conservation broadly; and
• All PIF partners to share this Plan Revision widely with colleagues, young professionals and students to foster a greater appreciation for and engagement in bird conservation.

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