International Cooperation in Wildlife Conservation

International cooperation in wildlife conservation began on a worldwide scale after the birth of the United Nations (UN) in 1945. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) set up wildlife conservation programmes.

In 1948, UNESCO helped establish the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), now better known as the World Conservation Union to support worldwide conservation.

As part of this international programme, the IUCN started to gather information on the endangered species of the world. To bring the species under the greatest threat to the attention of lawmakers, conservationists, and the public IUCN publishes its data in Red Data Book. In 1961 the IUCN helped set up the World Wildlife Fund (now the World Wide Fund for Nature).

International laws and conservation programmes are helping to reduce endangerment worldwide. In the last three decades a number of international agreements and treaties have been set up in an effort to save internationally important species and sites.

By 1988 forty-six nations had signed the Ramasar Convention (originally set up in 1971), which protects certain wetland habitats of international importance. The Bonn Convention signed in 1979 is devoted specifically to the global state of the migratory wildlife. Many wild species are protected by the international Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which was set up in 1975. This agreement aimed to control trade in wildlife and wildlife products introduced a licensing system to regulate trade in live species and their products. CITES bans the trade of furs of such endangered species as leopards and cheetahs. It also forbids the import or export of ivory, obtained from the tasks of elephants. Nowadays there are over 500 species such as apes, whales, tigers, elephants, many birds of prey, orchids and cacti classified as so endangered that all commercial trade is prohibited.

To address the problem of pollution, in 2001 the UN Environment Programme identified the most dangerous pollutants and initiated global negotiations, a move that created the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, an international treaty to ban these chemicals. By July 2002, four countries – Canada, Iceland, Norway and Sweden – had ratified the agreement.

Though a lot of steps are being taken to preserve nature, the future remains uncertain. And unless international conservation legislation is made as strong as possible it will have little effect in preventing species extinction and protecting vital environments.

World Book

Дата добавления: 2017-01-14