• Animals

The U.S. has Rejoined the Paris Agreement, but Why Not the CBD?

• #30x30
• biodiversity
• conservation
• Convention on Biological Diversity
• extinction crisis

Despite playing a significant role in drafting the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), an international agreement to conserve biodiversity, the U.S. is the only member of the United Nations yet to ratify it. The next Conference of the Parties (COP) of the CBD is scheduled to take place in China later this year.

Why This Matters: More than one million species are now considered endangered, and extinction rates have reached an all-time high.

• Animals

Champion for Nature, Biodiversity and Conserving #30×30: Elizabeth Mrema

• biodiversity
• capacity building
• climate change
• Convention on Biological Diversity
• extinction

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, a lifelong diplomat from the United Republic of Tanzania, in late 2019 assumed the role of Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), in the countdown to the Convention’s 2020 Conference of the Parties with the potential for the sixth wave of mass extinctions hanging in the balance.

• Politics

64 World Leaders – With Some Obvious Exceptions – Pledge to Conserve Nature

• #30x30
• biodiversity
• Campaign for Nature
• Convention on Biological Diversity
• extinction
• pandemic
• United Nations

The COVID-19 pandemic and a series of devastating reports have made clear that our “debt” to nature must be repaid, and yesterday more than 60 world leaders, including the Secretary-General of the United Nations, pledged to conserve more of the natural world.  They signed the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature, promising to address the climate crisis, deforestation, […]

• Sustainability

UN Biodiversity Targets Report Card: Incomplete at Best

• #30x30
• biological diversity
• business as usual
• Convention on Biological Diversity
• National Geographic Society
• nature
• sustainability
• United Nations

• Animals

Public Opinion in Asian Nations Overwhelmingly Favors Closing Unregulated “Wet Markets”

• #30x30
• Convention on Biological Diversity
• COVID-19
• illegal wildlife trafficking
• infectious diseases
• Lyme disease
• pandemic
• unregulated wildlife market

The World Wildlife Fund – U.S. (WWF- US) commissioned a public opinion survey in Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam in early March and they found that 93% of respondents in the four countries with active illegal wildlife markets support efforts by their governments and health ministries to close all illegal and unregulated markets selling wild animals – Japan was the lone exception.  

Why This Matters:  As Dr. Fauci says if we do not have enough evidence of the global toll unsustainable practices like this are having on our world, then what will it take?  

• Animals

Coronavirus Stops Wildlife Trade In China In Its Tracks

• #30x30
• Convention on Biological Diversity
• coronavirus
• illegal wildlife trafficking
• SARs

The Chinese government announced on Sunday several drastic measures to attempt to stop the spread of the coronavirus in China, including China banning the trade of wild animals until the coronavirus epidemic has been eliminated across the country — the ban was deemed necessary because it appears that the disease was transmitted to humans through a “wet” market that traded in game meat.

Why This Matters:  There have long been calls for the Chinese to crack down on illegal wildlife trade — the question is whether the rapid spread of this virus and the fear and disruption it is causing will finally lead to an end to a permanent end to the wild animal trade there