“Unless the international community integrates wildlife conservation with sustainable development, it will not be able to protect the remaining animal species on Earth,” said the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), Bradnee Chambers, on the opening day of the Conference of the Parties to Convention on Migratory Species (CMS). He spoke alongside Ibrahim Thiaw (Deputy Executive Director, UN Environment) and UN Environment Goodwill Ambassadors Nadya Hutagalung and Yann Arthus-Bertrand, among others.
The weeklong event is called “the year’s largest wildlife conference” and CMS COP has convened in Asia for the first time since the treaty was adopted in Germany in 1979. This year’s conference focuses on sustainable development for wildlife and people, tying in with the Sustainable Development Goals. Addressing the opening of the conference, John Scanlon, the Secretary-General of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, noted the importance of the CITES and the CMS, and other conventions in the family of biodiversity-related conventions that “go to the very heart of international environmental governance” and stressed that “their successful implementation is critical to ensuring the survival of wildlife and to our own quality of life.” To learn more, please click here.