The first continental bird conservation initiative for North America started under the North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP) during the mid-1980s. About five years later Partners in Flight (PIF; focused on landbird species) came into being followed by the U.S. and Canada Shorebird Conservation Plans (USSCP and CSCP), the North American Waterbird Conservation Plan (NAWCP), and the Northern Bobwhite Conservation Initiative (NBCI). Soon after the establishment of NAWMP,priority areas for waterfowl conservation were identified for delivering conservation programs, now referred to as Joint Ventures. Soon after PIF was initiated, all of the United States and Canada was divided into Physiographic Areas, loosely based on areas defined by the Breeding Bird Survey. USSCP and NAWCP identified larger planning regions, which were essentially aggregations of previously identified planning units established under PIF. To better facilitate all-bird conservation and communication, these four initiatives linked together to form the North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI). Under NABCI, the initiatives agreed to a new way to establish boundaries now referred to as Bird Conservation Regions (BCR's), which were quickly adopted by the most recently formed initiative, NBCI. Presently, the challenge is to match up existing Joint Venture conservation delivery structures addressing all birds with BCR planning units. In the Southeastern United States, we are close to having full coverage for all birds, with the exceptions of East Gulf Coastal Plain sub-BCR of the Southeastern Coastal Plain (BCR 27), where action is pending, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, which is not officially included under the Atlantic Joint Venture at this time while the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is included. Future actions to link conservation delivery between the United States (e.g., Texas in the Southeast) and Mexico for borderland BCR's is presently under discussion. Key words: North American Bird Conservation Initiative, NABCI, bird, conservation NO PAPER WAS SUBMITTED WITH THIS ABSTRACT.
