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The article discusses the decline of the farmland birds population in Europe. Topics mention including the Farmland Bird Index (FBI) shows the decrease of farmland birds between 1990 and 2014, regional and international institution who committed in halting the loss of biodiversity by 2020 and assessing the use of agri-environmental management schemes (AES).

Around fifteen thousand fieldworkers annually count breeding birds using standardized protocols in 28 European countries. The observations are collected by using country-specific and standardized protocols, validated, summarized and finally used for the production of continent-wide annual and long-term indices of population size changes of 170 species. Here, we present the database and provide a detailed summary of the methodology used for fieldwork and calculation of the relative population size change estimates. We also provide a brief overview of how the data are used in research, conservation and policy. We believe this unique database, based on decades of bird monitoring alongside the comprehensive summary of its methodology, will facilitate and encourage further use of the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme results.