Background

Our planet is a highly connected ecosystem, and the most amazing global connectors of our natural world are the long-distance migrating shorebirds that depend on successful breeding in the northernmost land on Earth and rely for their survival on the rare suitable and often small coastal areas along the margins of continental landmasses. The ways in which these global connections are patterned across the globe have been termed ‘flyways’, and among the world’s six major flyways, it is the East Atlantic Flyway (EAF) that bridges the tundras of northeastern Arctic Canada, Greenland, northernmost Europe, European Russia and the western half of Siberia with the coasts of western Europe and western Africa as far south as Cape Town. Within this flyway system, three areas stand out for their unique importance as recipients of the tundra natives outside the breeding season: (1) the international Wadden Sea - shared by Denmark, Germany and The Netherlands, (2) the Banc d’Arguin in Mauritania, and (3) the Bijagos Archipelago in Guinea-Bissau.