Half world's Migratory birds on decline, Kenya at the crossroads

White storks travel thousands of kilometres from Europe and western Asia to tropical and southern Africa. [Courtesy]

Every year, billions of birds take to the sky and fly many kilometres across the planet, following the same paths that have been used for thousands of years.

These paths are known as flyways. They are broad, invisible highways that carry birds from where they breed to where they spend the rest of the year, often crossing several countries and several continents in a single journey.

Researchers have mapped out four major flyway systems used by migratory land and water birds, plus six more used only by seabirds that spend their lives over the open ocean. Each flyway is made up of breeding grounds, wintering grounds, and a long chain of stopover sites in between, where tired birds land to rest and feed before continuing their journeys.

Because migratory birds depend on habitats in different countries over the course of a year, this means that all nations have to protect a migratory species. Their survival depends on cooperation across borders, which is exactly why the Global Flyways Summit was held in Nairobi last week.

“Nature Kenya is proud to co-host this important global gathering. As a country situated along the African-Eurasian Flyway, we see first-hand the importance of international cooperation in conserving migratory species. The Global Flyways Summit provides an opportunity for Africa to help lead a global response, one that is informed by science and focused on delivering tangible commitments for birds, biodiversity and people.” Nature Kenya director Paul Matiku said.

Birds are one of the best tools scientists have for measuring the planet's health. Because they are so easy to track and so sensitive to change, a falling bird population is often the clearest early sign that an ecosystem is in trouble.

During the Summit, the stakeholders launched The State of the World’s Birds 2026, a report with alarming findings.  The report is published every four years by BirdLife International. It revealed that 45 per cent of the world's 1,843 migratory bird species are now in active, sustained decline. The report zeroes in on species that depend on the ocean, forests, and coastal wetlands, and the numbers from those groups are especially troubling. It revealed that 54 per cent of migratory shorebirds and 42 per cent of seabirds are currently losing population. Overall, 11 per cent of all migratory birds, roughly one in every nine species, are directly threatened with extinction.

Over recent decades, the report shows that 102 migratory species have been pushed into higher-risk categories on the conservation Red List, while only 34 species have improved enough to be moved to safer ground. This means that birds are losing ground roughly three times faster than they are gaining it.

Seven migratory species are already confirmed to have gone extinct over the last 150 years. The most recent is the Slender-billed Curlew, a small wading bird officially declared extinct in 2025 after it was last recorded alive in Morocco in 1995. Its disappearance is the first confirmed bird extinction on mainland Eurasia and Africa in modern history.

Scientists say the causes of these declines are well understood, and almost all of them trace back to human activity along the flyways birds depend on.

Invasive species and disease affect 139 threatened migratory species. Agricultural expansion and climate change each affect 103 species. Unsustainable hunting and trapping affect 99 species. Pollution damages 96 species, and urban development threatens 71. Along the flyway linking Europe to Africa, long-distance migrants have fallen by 35 per cent since 1980, a collapse of more than a third in less than half a century.

Where Kenya fits on the map of the sky

Kenya sits exactly where several of the world’s busiest bird migration routes converge. The country falls within the African-Eurasian Flyway System, the network identified as carrying the largest share of the world’s land and water bird migrations. More specifically, it is a critical hub for the West Asian–East African Flyway, one of the core systems that drive bird movements across the continent.

This route carries birds from breeding grounds as far away as Siberia, down through the Middle East and the Nile Valley, before many of them settle in the highlands and lake basins of East Africa, Kenya included. Birds using this flyway typically reach the Horn of Africa by late August or September. Many of them fly south through Uganda and the Lake Victoria basin, or straight down through the Kenyan highlands, before making the return journey north again in spring along the East African coast.

Kenya's Great Rift Valley also serves as the southern terminus where the Black Sea–Mediterranean and Rift Valley/Red Sea flyways overlap. This corridor carries soaring birds such as raptors between breeding grounds in Eastern Europe and Western Asia and wintering areas deep within Africa. Large numbers of these birds fly down through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait between Yemen and Djibouti before continuing south into the Kenyan Rift Valley and beyond.  Because Kenya features a 550-kilometre coastline on the Indian Ocean, it forms part of the marine flyway network that governs the movement of seabirds, tying its waters to migration routes stretching across the wider Indian Ocean.

Rather than being touched by just one flyway, Kenya is stitched into at least three separate migratory systems. For this reason, the country's Rift Valley lakes were singled out for special distinction when the UNESCO World Heritage Committee mapped out critical sites of universal value, alongside ecological wonders like the Wadden Sea in Europe and the Okavango Delta in Botswana

This convergence is why Kenya's Great Rift Valley lakes, Nakuru, Naivasha, Bogoria, and Elementaita, along with its coastal river estuaries, function as some of the most important refuelling stations anywhere on the African-Eurasian flyway.

Millions of exhausted birds land at these sites each year after crossing the Sahara, the Arabian Peninsula, or the Red Sea, and depend on them to rest, feed, and regain the strength to continue their journey. But many of these stopover sites are themselves under strain.

 Globally, 58 per cent of the 1,099 Key Biodiversity Areas assessed for migratory birds are currently rated in poor or very poor condition, largely because of land conversion, water abstraction, and pollution, pressures that apply to Kenya's lakes and wetlands as anywhere else on the flyway.

A status report released earlier this year by Nature Kenya, which assessed 58 of the country's critical biodiversity sites, found that only five remained in favourable condition, while 31, the majority, had slipped into unfavourable status. 

In Kenya, widening conflict between development and conservation, with large infrastructure projects increasingly encroaching on sensitive habitats, remains one of the biggest challenges. Climate change and invasive species are compounding the pressure on some of the most critical sites for migratory birds, including the Rift Valley lakes.

 

Side bar

The Nairobi Flyways Declaration signed to protect flyways

It is against the mounting pressures on the highways of the skies that scientists, conservationists, and government leaders converged in Kenya for the Global Flyways Summit. At the summit, key stakeholders signed the Nairobi Flyways Declaration, described as a first-of-its-kind international pact committing nations to coordinated, flyway-scale conservation rather than site-by-site protection that has typically defined efforts in the past. The idea behind the declaration is that saving a migratory species means securing the entire chain of habitats it depends on across every country it passes through.

Multilateral development banks have mobilised more than $6 billion in conservation finance since 2021 and are now folding flyway protection directly into their lending frameworks. The Asian Development Bank has pledged $3 billion over the next decade to safeguard at least 50 priority wetlands along the East Asian-Australasian flyway. The Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean has committed between $3 billion and $5 billion through 2050 to protect more than 30 critical landscapes. The World Bank and BirdLife International are separately running multi-billion-dollar initiatives across the African-Eurasian corridor that includes Kenya. And in June 2026, the Global Environment Facility approved the Global Flyways Grant Mechanism, unlocking $8.97 million in direct grants and a further $107 million in co-financing aimed at restoring nine million hectares of wetlands worldwide.

Her Imperial Highness Princess Takamado, Honorary President of BirdLife International, described the moment as historic.

 “Migratory birds do not recognise borders. They connect Asia to Africa, the Arctic to the tropics. The Nairobi Flyways Declaration acknowledges this reality: it needs international cooperation and coordination to keep migratory birds safe,” she said. “I am excited and proud to see that the scientific community, conservation organisations, and the financial sector are uniting to make this happen. We stand at an important turning point. We have been waiting for this moment for a long time.”

Dr Paul Matiku, Executive Director of Nature Kenya, noted that the declaration recognises the continent as central to the entire system

 “As a proud co-host of the Global Flyways Summit, Nature Kenya is honoured to bring African perspectives. The birds that breed in Europe, Asia and the Arctic depend on our wetlands, grasslands and forests. The Nairobi Declaration and finance commitments recognise that African nations are not just stakeholders but also stewards of solutions,” he said.

BirdLife International's Chief Executive, Martin Harper, said the Nairobi Declaration signals a turning point in conservation of flyways.

“The State of the World's Birds report is unambiguous: we are losing migratory birds at an alarming rate. But today's Nairobi Declaration signals a turning point. We need everyone to step up and play their part. That means governments, business and civil society. Development banks are rising to the challenge. We now need others to step up to reverse the declines and save the wonder of migration,” Harper said.

 

At a Glance

-1,843 migratory bird species assessed

-45 per cent (829 species) have declining populations

-1 in 9 species threatened with global extinction

32 migratory bird species classified as Critically Endangered; 111 Migratory species assessed 111 as Endangered; 102 as Vulnerable

-102 species moved to a higher risk category, while 34 species moved to a lower risk category

Extinctions

-7 species confirmed or suspected lost in the last 150 years

Hardest-hit groups

-Seabirds and shorebirds among the most threatened categories

-42 per cent of seabird species in marine flyways are threatened

Top threats

Invasive species and diseases, Agriculture, Climate change, Hunting, Pollution, Urban development, Human disturbance, Fisheries, Energy infrastructure, Logging