The Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species and Wild Animals (CMS) has prepared International Light Pollution Guidelines for migratory species.
Key points
- CMS COP14, which ended in Uzbekistan’s Samarkand on February 17, 2024, noted that natural darkness has conservation value equal to clean water, air and soil.
- Between 1992 and 2017, artificial light emissions have increased over 49 per cent and can severely impact wildlife, including causing behavioural and psychological changes.
- The guidelines have been adapted from the ‘National Light Pollution Guidelines for Wildlife Including Marine Turtles, Seabirds and Migratory Shorebirds’, developed by the Government of Australia in 2020.
- They recommend reducing light pollution to minimise its effect on wildlife, besides undertaking environmental impact assessments to understand the effects of artificial light on species’ behaviour, foraging, migration, dispersal, survival or reproduction.
Effects of light pollution
- Birds may starve when artificial lighting disrupts foraging, and fledgling seabirds may not be able to take their first flight if their nesting habitat never becomes dark.
- Artificial light can disorient flying migratory birds, diverting from efficient migratory routes or even collide with infrastructure.
- Migratory shorebirds may avoid roosting sites, which have high proportion of lights and increase their vulnerability to predation due to visibility.
- Exposure to white light also causes stress hormone corticosterone to increase among free living songbirds, as against green or red light. The species may produce fewer offspring due to high stress hormone levels as a result.
