‘ Do not forget the partnership Wildlife itself’ , said Ian Redmond, UN Ambassador for Convention on Migratory Species, when I talked to him on the eve of World Wildlife Day 2023. I call Ian as Gorilla-Man . He lived with the ecosystem of Gorilla in Africa not only to study Gorilla but to understand that species under threat of extinction. He agreed to write short piece on the occasion of The World Wild Life day for the social media and web site of Smart Campus Cloud Network. I thought my wildest dream has come true!
-Dr Rajendra Shende, Founder Director Green TERRE Foundation.
Curtain Raiser for World Wildlife Day :
On 20 December 2013, at its 68th session, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA),for decided to proclaim 3 March, as World Wildlife Day. For the first time, World Wildlife Day was celebrated in 2014. The World Wildlife Day ( WWD) reaffirms the intrinsic value of wildlife and its various contributions, including ecological, genetic, social, economic, scientific, educational, cultural, recreational and aesthetic, to sustainable development.
On March 3, 1973, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) was adopted, which plays an important role in ensuring that international trade in wild animal and plant specimens does not endanger the existence and survival of the species.
CITES has 183 member countries and is one of the most powerful tools for biodiversity conservation in the world, regulating trade in wild fauna and flora.
Around 50,000 wild species meet the needs of billions of people worldwide and one in 5 people around the world relies on wild species for income and food, according to the United Nations data. It is not just wild animals that need to be conserved but wild flora as well. The UN data shows that species like cacti, seaweeds, giraffes, parrots, and oak trees are under the ‘endangered’ category.
As per 2022 Living Planet Report of World Wildlife Fund, the global wildlife population has plummeted by nearly 69 percent over last 50 years! The reason? Human led activities like trade in wild life species and the unsustainable style of human ‘developmental’ needs. 41000 wild species are under threat of extinction.
Theme for 2023 WWD
Partnerships for Wildlife Conservation.
Here is message of UN Ambassador for Conservation of Migratory species, Ian Redmond, specially sent for Smart Campus Cloud Network.
“Partnerships are important for most human endeavours, but the most important partners we forget in our fight against climatecrisis and biodiversity loss are the animals who play the role of GardenersoftheForests and savannah, such as elephants and primates, plus in marine ecosystems those who fertilise the phytoplankton, coralreefs and seagrass beds, such as Cetaceans and Sirenians.”
Universities are essential in bringing about the changes needed to correct the imbalance in our relationship with nature, educating the next generation of leaders and doing the research and analysis which must inform policy – for example quantifying how to optimise ecosystem function by restoring the full complement of animals to historic levels. For two centuries we have been asking more and more of ecosystems to clean up our emissions and filth while simultaneously reducing their area through deforestation, land conversion and pollution.
If we are to live within out planetary boundaries, we must get behind the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration and make each square meter of habitat as productive as possible, and enable each depleted population of wild animals to recover their numbers to the optimum level.I appreciate the movement of global network of Universities to localise the SDGs in campus where every student would be ambassador and partner with Wildlife.”.
-Ian Redmond.
Ambassador, UN’s Convention on Migratory Species
Co-Founder, Rebalance Earth
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