• On average, 20 million birds disappear each year in Europe. A new study blames agricultural intensification as the primary cause of this dramatic decline.
  • Based on thirty-seven years of observations in 28 European countries and involving 170 species, the study draws a dramatic report on European bird populations.
  • To better understand this endangered biodiversity, the implications of our agriculture and the solutions that could be implemented, 20 Minutes relied on the insights of ornithologist Alexandre Millon, lecturer at Aix-Marseille University.

Year after year, the tweets lose intensity. Sparrows, swallows, boreal, etc. Gradually, silence fell on the French gardens. The scientific world has been warning for years about the slaughter but the decline of bird populations continues its way, inexorably.

A new study published Monday in the American journal Pnas (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) points the finger at the responsibility of intensive agriculture. But is the decline of birds in Europe so dramatic? How is agriculture responsible? 20 Minutes looked at this new alarm signal and its conclusions, thanks to the enlightenment of ornithologist Alexandre Millon, lecturer at Aix-Marseille University.

Are birds really disappearing in Europe?

"On a global scale and in the long term, we can talk about a collapse of bird populations," regrets Alexandre Millon. Every year, 20 million birds disappear on the old continent, according to the study published Monday in the American journal Pnas. In forty years, 800 million individuals have disappeared. That's a quarter of Europe's birds. "Some species fare better than others. But overall, there are more and more species in decline or even in very pronounced decline, "notes the ornithologist who himself co-authored a study on the effects of climate change on bird reproduction.

"Some species that used to be very common have suffered very significant losses in recent decades, such as barn swallows or house sparrows. The turtle dove has lost three-quarters of its workforce on a European scale," explains Alexandre Millon. "On the scale of a human generation, we see the difference. However, for it to be visible, it means that populations are in very sharp decline," notes the researcher at the Mediterranean Institute of Marine and Continental Biodiversity and Ecology. The study published on Monday highlights an 18% drop in forest birds. It rises to 28% for urban birds. And it explodes to 57% for birds in the agricultural environment.

Why is agriculture singled out?

"Agricultural intensification, particularly pesticide and fertilizer use, represents the main pressure for most bird population declines, especially those that feed on invertebrates," the researchers say in their paper. "Roughly half of the world's bird species will feed on insects at least at certain times in their life cycle," explains Alexandre Millon. However, the invertebrates on which birds feed are greatly affected by intensive agriculture. "The loss of natural habitat, pesticides, chemical inputs, herbicides, or insecticides, it is all the less food for birds," explains the ornithologist. Especially since the problem will intensify. The planet has eight billion human beings and a peak of 10.4 billion is expected in the 2080s.

"To feed all these people, we will have to further increase agricultural production. Twenty or thirty years after pointing the finger at agriculture - not farmers but the way we consume and eat, we are still at the conclusion. It's a bit desperate," says Alexandre Millon. In addition, agriculture contributes to global warming. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which operates under the auspices of the United Nations, agricultural activities are responsible for nearly a third of total greenhouse gas emissions. Global warming is helping to decimate bird populations in Europe. Cold-preferable species, such as the boreal, have declined by 40%. "Most of the effects of global warming are indirect on bird populations, by reducing the amount of food or changing their environment," says the ornithologist.

How can the phenomenon be stopped?

At a time when the most dramatic decline in bird populations is occurring in agricultural settings, there is an urgent need for a paradigm shift. "We need to completely rethink the way we feed ourselves and source this food," says Alexandre Millon. "We need global changes to have a positive effect on bird populations. We need to change land use practices and stop nibbling away at natural spaces," he said, adding that "the share of biodiversity left to wildlife is shrinking more and more."

To implement these global changes, we must "rethink our agriculture by integrating biodiversity. Whereas originally we thought we were producing against nature, today we have to produce with nature." "We can produce at quite satisfactory levels in terms of yield for human populations with practices that have a reduced impact on nature," says the researcher, who also highlights the rapprochement of producers and consumers.

An urgent paradigm shift, while nearly half of the world's species are in decline and one in eight is threatened with extinction, noted in September the international NGO BirdLife in its report.

  • Global warming
  • Planet
  • Bird
  • Biodiversity
  • Agriculture
  • Intensive farming