The Aquatic Warbler (Acrocephalus paludicola) is the rarest, and only globally threatened, passerine bird (IUCN status “vulnerable”), found in mainland Europe, with a very small world population of only 13,500-21,000 pairs. Once widespread and numerous on fen mires and wet meadows, this habitat specialist has disappeared from most of its former key range in northern Germany and Poland due to habitat loss and degradation.
With its habitats nowadays dependent on human land use and being extremely susceptible to changes in traditional land use, it is now effectively a conservation dependent species with an acutely threatened and genetically distinct population along the German-Polish border (“Pomerania”) and a larger one in northeastern Poland (“Biebrza region”). A. paludicola is listed in Annex 1 of the EU Birds Directive, and as a priority species for EU LIFE funding.
Most range states including Poland and Germany signed an international Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the species under the Bonn Convention for Migratory Species (CMS) in 2003, committing themselves to the implementation of an International Action Plan for this flagship species of its habitat. The proposed project will contribute to its implementation, targeting the breeding sites of 81% of the remaining Polish and German populations in the two named regions (c.2800 pairs), equalling 76% of the EU population.
