Revista Brasileira de Ornitologia 25(4): 233–236. December 2017 EDITORIAL Our Brazilian Ornithological Society (Sociedade Brasileira de Ornitologia - SBO) was born 30 years ago. Te aim of this Editorial is provide a point-of-view of relevant facts that lead the establishment of the SBO, and some key (despite not exhaustive) facts along these three decades. Te 20 th Century was an important period for the development of ornithology as a science in Brazil (see Pinto 1979, Paynter-Jr. 1991, Belton 1994, Sick 1997, Alves & Silva 2000, Aleixo & Straube 2007, Fontana et al. 2017). Te German ornithologist and naturalist Emilie Snethlage (who worked at the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi and Museu Nacional), Olivério Pinto (ornithologist from the Museu Paulista, today Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo) and another German ornithologist, Helmut Sick (from the Museu Nacional, Rio de Janeiro), were amongst those who made substantial contributions to build the knowledge of our birds. In addition to undertaking extensive expeditions to diferent Brazilian biomes, they were responsible for innumerable publications and also scientifc collections that were fundamental for the development of ornithology until now. However, prior to the creation of the SBO, some Brazilian institutions and universities already had researchers dedicated to the study of birds, although they still had only limited integration, largely due to the physical distances separating them in a country of continental size, besides other logistic difculties. Te frst entity - the Clube de Observadores de Aves (COA) of Rio Grande do Sul - aimed to bring together those interested in ornithology and bird watching arose in the 1970's. William “Bill” Belton, a retired but infuential north-American diplomat and passionate birdwatcher in Rio Grande do Sul, was the mentor in 1974 of this frst birdwatcher club. Tis initiative was followed by other clubs of Sociedade Brasileira de Ornitologia: a history Elizabeth Höfing 1, 2 , Luiz dos Anjos 3 , Pedro Scherer-Neto 4 , Paulo de Tarso Zuquim Antas 5 & Carla Suertegaray Fontana 6,7 1 Departamento de Zoologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, Rua do Matão, Travessa 14, 101, 05508-090, São Paulo, Brazil. 2 Museu de História Natural de Taubaté, R. Juvenal Dias de Carvalho 111, Jardim do Sol, 12070-640, Taubaté, SP, Brazil. 3 Departamento de Biologia Animal e Vegetal, Universidade Estadual de Londrina, Rodovia Celso Garcia Cid, PR 445 km 380, 86057-970, Londrina, PR, Brazil. 4 Museu de História Natural “Capão da Imbuia", R. Benedito Conceição 407, 82810-080, Curitiba, PR, Brazil. 5 Fundação Pró-Natureza, SCLN 107, Bloco B, sala 201, 70743-520, Brasília, DF, Brazil. 6 PUCRS. Laboratório de Ornitologia, Museu de Ciências e Tecnologia e Curso de Pós-graduação em Zoologia. Av. Ipiranga 6681, 90619-900, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. 7 Corresponding author: carla@pucrs.br Received on 11 December 2017. Accepted on 03 March 2018. birdwatching in various states of Brazil, such as the Centro de Estudos Ornitológicos (CEO) founded in 1984, in the Departamento de Zoologia of the Instituto de Biociências of the Universidade de São Paulo. A decade before the founding of the SBO, in 1977, the CEMAVE (formerly named Centro de Estudos de Migrações de Aves) was founded at a national level by the Instituto Brasileiro de Desenvolvimento Florestal [Brazilian Institute for Forestry Development], whose frst course in bird watching was ministered by Bill Belton, with the participation of Helmut Sick. Today the CEMAVE is one of the 13 National Centers for Research and Conservation under the auspices of the Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade (ICMBio). Tese entities, the CEMAVE, COAs and CEO, were seeds for the future development of the SBO. At the onset of the 1980's amateur and professional ornithologists organized a series of meetings that brought together ornithologists at local and national levels, especially the Encontros de Anilhadores de Aves [birdbanders meetings] promoted by CEMAVE, the frst of which was held at Universidade Federal de Viçosa (Minas Gerais) from 02 to 24 January of 1985. At these events, contacts between ornithologists were gradually increased and gave rise to the idea of the creation of a national entity in the form of a society that would bring together people interested in ornithology and also a regular meeting of this society. Subsequently, the frst attempts to organize a society dedicated to the study of birds occurred within the scope of the congresses of the Sociedade Brasileira de Zoologia (SBZ) by way of the Brazilian Ornithological Meetings. Tus, in 1984, on the occasion of the XI Congress of the SBZ in Belém (Pará), during the II Encontro Brasileiro de Ornitologia, on 16 February, the creation of the SBO was proposed. At that time there were in Brazil only a few