Linking perceptions of diversity and importance to occurrence of avifauna in rural communities and the implications for conservartion: a case study of Mupari communal area, Shurugwi, Zimbabwe.

Birds constitute an important part of the earths’ vertebrate organisms and are among the most diverse, conspicuous and fascinating forms of life. There are over ten thousand species of birds in the world. Besides their great ecological role in seed dispersal, pollination, importance in food weds / chains, they have also been crucial to man for meat, communication, recreation, decoration and as a source of inspiration. Unfortunately about 1,012 species of birds are being threatened by extinction due to anthropogenic induced factors, (Tabur, 2006). A perception survey was done by carrying out a questionnaire interview of villagers to determine their appreciations of avifauna diversity, importance and conservation with an objective to determine conservation principles for birds in communal areas. Avifauna diversity perceived by the community was confirmed by a scientific bird survey carried by the researcher. The bird listing technique was used to determine avifauna diversity and abundance. SSPS, excel, Sutrop salient index packages and ecological indices were applied to analyse the data obtained from the research. High appreciation of avifauna diversity and importance was revealed by the study among the communal people of Mupari. The use of Sutrop indicated that edible birds and those that pose little problems to crops and domesticated animals scored higher salience. Birds that had higher Sutrop salience value also form one cluster when analysed by the Principal Component and Hierarchical Cluster analysis. The research revealed little access to information on birds from respective monitoring and enforcement institutions. Great avifauna diversity exists in this communal area and bird conservation institutes need to work with such communal areas locally and across the globe to preserve this genus in light of their great mobile characteristic.