In 1979, the European Community adopted a nature conservation directive, the BIRD Directive, specifically aimed at the protection of birds. The ORNIS Committee was created to assist in its application. At the initiative of scientific institutions of the Community, a data base, also named ORNIS, was constituted to provide the Committee with the necessary data. This data base was last updated in 1994. It is thus composed of data collected up to the beginning of the 1990's and is limited to the 12 Member States that formed the Community in 1995.

En 1979, la Commission européenne a adopté la Directive 79/409/CEE sur les Oiseaux Sauvages, appelée Directive Oiseaux.  Cette directive a pour but de répondre à la situation préoccupante des populations européennes d'oiseaux et de l'évidente nécessité d'une action au niveau Communautaire pour améliorer leur statut. Le Comité ORNIS a été créé pour assister cette directive dans son application. Sous l'initiative d'institutions scientifiques, une base de données, appelée ORNIS,a été constituée afin de fournir au Comité les informations nécessaires. Cette base de données fut mise à jour en 1994. Elle est donc composée des données collectées depuis le début des années 1990 et limitées au 12 Etats Membres qui formaient la Communauté européenne en 1995.

The ORNIS Data Base was constructed by the Conservation Biology Section of the Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique, with the collaboration of the Goulandris Museum, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (United Kingdom), the Ministère de l'Aménagement du Territoire et de l'Environnement (France), the Office National de la Chasse (France), the Irish Wildlife Services, the Istituto Nazionale per la Fauna Selvatica and of R. Geiser (DG XI, Commission of European Communities). The work was co-financed by the Commission of European Communities. P. Kunkel and A. Anselin were mainly responsible for the compilation of data. This presentation was prepared by J.-P. Vande weghe and R.-M. Lafontaine, with the participation of I. Bachy, M.-O. Beudels, R. C. Beudels-Jamar, G. De Smet, P. Devillers, J. Devillers-Terschuren, C. Kerwyn, Y. Laurent, W. Roggeman, P. Stassin, Ch. Vander Linden, with financial support of the Commission of European Communities (contract 97/713/3060/DLS/A2/MM). In accordance with the contract, it exists in two versions, English and French. The rights to the documents produced are the property of the Commission. These documents are hosted on the site of the Conservation Biology Section of the Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique at the request of the services of the Commission, in partial fulfilment of the above-mentioned contract.