Pheasants: Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan ... - IUCN

and people involved in management. If the major
agencies involved in global conservation are to advocate
action relating to pheasant conservation, it is necessary
for them to have easy access to such material. In addition,
authorship of papers in international, peer-reviewed
journals can do a great deal for the career prospects of
researchers, which will, in turn, improve their prospects of
permanent employment in the conservation sector, as well
as increase their capacity to raise project funds at home
and abroad to undertake further work. Sponsors will also
receive publicity through acknowledgements for funding
in publications.
Project description: PSG members with the most experience
in this area should be asked to assist others on a one-toone
basis. This would probably involve visits in one or
both directions to facilitate work on data presentation,
statistical analysis, interpretation of findings, access to
existing literature, and journal manuscript preparation.
Timescale: as an ongoing project, this work should be
continuous.
Resources: the costs of travel, accommodation, and
subsistence would usually need to be found for visitors.
Project 3. Maintaining an Asian
Galliformes sites database
Aim: to update and maintain a database of localities and
associated information for all Galliformes species in Asia.
Justification: reliable information on where species occur
is a cornerstone of many conservation activities. These
include global conservation assessments of the type
undertaken in this Action Plan, the identification of key
areas for groups of threatened species (perhaps in several
different taxa), and the highlighting of areas where
distribution surveys are still required. In combination
with other data sets, such as those mapping habitat types
and protected areas, these data can be used to conduct a
variety of strategic analyses. The basic requirement is the
compilation of data on where species have occurred in the
past and still persist today.
Project description: a database has been compiled for
Asian Galliformes, but as new fieldwork is carried out,
new sites are documented. There is a need to update the
database continuously and to establish it in such a
way that it can readily be used for conservation. As the
existing database contains localities on all Galliformes
species (except the megapodes) in Asia, it seems sensible
to maintain this structure. Many of these species inhabit
the same areas and are studied or surveyed by the
same people, so this will also maximise the efficiency with
which the data are compiled, assessed, stored, and then
retrieved.
Timescale: as an ongoing project, this work should
be continuous, although the database should be
institutionalised as soon as possible.
Resources: the main resource requirement is time to
administer the database.
Project 4. Assessing populations of
Asian Galliformes within protected areas
Aim: to assess whether each of the 82 protected areas
identified in a recent study contains viable populations of
threatened Galliformes.
Justification: recent work has identified a set of 82 protected
areas within Asia, approximately half of which are
irreplaceable in the context of Galliformes conservation
(McGowan et al. 1999). However, the study was only able
to use species lists from protected areas: whether or not
each listed species was actually present in these areas in
viable populations remains in question. Such an assessment
is vital to ensuring that the most effective protected area
network is identified, leading to the best use of scarce
resources for the conservation of all Asian Galliformes
and many other species besides. A list of species that have
viable populations in each protected area is, therefore,
required.
Project description: ideally, each protected area would be
surveyed to assess whether there are viable populations of
each Galliformes species present. This is, however,
extremely difficult as many areas are physically hard to
survey on the ground, most of the species are not easy to
detect, and there are many areas to be surveyed. The work
should, therefore, concentrate on surveying a few key
areas and then extrapolating the results by using detailed
habitat maps for as many other areas as possible. The
broad habitat relations of most threatened pheasant species
are sufficiently well known to allow assessments of the
amount of habitat available to be made. Ground surveys
should concentrate on understanding levels of habitat
disturbance and the effect this may have on species
distribution and abundance.
Timescale: surveys of any length within protected areas
will contribute useful information to this work, which
should be continuous.
Resources: needs will vary depending on the length and
scope of any particular project.
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