Vets were called in and as the animal had managed to survive the savage attack and was still eating properly, they decided to try and save it. They darted it and administered masses of antibiotics in the hope that the horrific wound will heal.

Also of great concern is the fact that this rhino had been dehorned last year and the poachers were not deterred by the fact that it had only a small stump of horn. Despite the obvious determination of the poachers, the authorities are reluctant to provide the conservators with suitable weaponry to protect these endangered animals.

The Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force relies soley on public donations. Your donation can help to preserve the wildlife in Zimbabwe. If you would like to assist, please contact them.

More than 90 per cent of all rhino species have already been wiped out. We must act now before it’s too late. Join our campaign to save these endangered species from extinction.

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According to WorldWaterDay.org, 27 percent of the urban population in the developing world doesn’t have access to piped water at home, and poor people in developing countries pay exponentially more for their water than people in North America.

But water shortages aren’t restricted to any one country or continent. As climate change continues to exacerbate environments around the world, recent droughts seen everywhere from the Amazon to the U.S. may become more frequent and more intense. If you haven’t started making every effort to conserve water, this World Water Day is the best time to start.

Here are some easy tips to start saving water at home, which will likewise lower your water bill. Submit your own tips to conserve water below, or tweet your idea with the hashtag #SaveWater and we’ll add it to the slideshow.

CLICK HERE to see how you can get involved with organizations that are helping to provide clean drinking water to those in need around the world.

Please click here to join our campaign to save endangered rhinos from extinction.

The recent intense two-week meeting on trade in endangered species has been described as a failure in many newspapers and blogs, principally because member countries could not reach an agreement on new trade measures to protect certain marine species.

The fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora ( CITES) held in Doha, Qatar, included an unprecedented number of proposals regarding commercially exploited aquatic species.

CITES protects roughly 5,000 animal species and 28,000 plant species from over-exploitation through international trade. Each protected species or population is included in one of three lists, or Appendices, reflecting the extent of the threat to it and the controls over its trade.

Bearing much of the spotlight this year was the controversial (and unsuccessful) bid to get the Parties to list the Atlantic bluefin tuna in Appendix I (for species that are threatened with extinction and are or may be affected by trade).

However, rather than dwelling on the negative, my argument is that this summit should instead be viewed as the impetus for strengthened political will on many issues — the most important being a resolve to strengthen enforcement and compliance of the convention.

Compliance is critical

The key to the success of any multilateral agreement is effective enforcement and compliance. Although CITES is legally binding on the Parties, it does not replace national laws. Rather it provides a framework that must still be adopted by a country’s own domestic laws to allow implement CITES at the national level.

Even after a species is listed in the convention’s appendices, if enforcement at the national level is not enough (either due to poor law enforcement or ineffective judiciary), “failure” can nonetheless occur.

Photo by: fPat Murray

A classic example is the trade in tiger and tiger parts, a species listed in Appendix I, but protection of which has failed due to huge demand in some Asian countries. (Tigers are poached for their skins, which are prized for decoration, and parts of their bodies used in traditional medicines.)

The current number of tigers lies at an astoundingly low 3,200 according to CITES. In the case of this majestic animal, even the CITES Secretary-General admitted that protection has failed and this has been primarily due to lax law enforcement at the national level.

“We must admit that we have failed miserably,” Willem Wijnstekers said. “Although the tiger has been prized throughout history… it is now literally on the verge of extinction.”

If monitoring the illegal trade in terrestrial mammals like tigers has been difficult, the monitoring of the vast ocean in protection of bluefin tuna presents an enormous task for certain. Though it did not make the list this time, I venture to predict that bluefin will end up just like the tigers; listed in Appendix I but still critically endangered. This is because the quantity of tuna consumed as food is higher than that of any of the species currently listed in CITES.

Others see the situation in a slightly different light:

“Though it was disappointing, the rejection of the proposed Atlantic tuna international trade ban should be seen as an opportunity, not as a failure,” said Sergi Tudela, Head of Fisheries at WWF Mediterranean.

“It is now up to members of regional management organizations in charge of Atlantic bluefin tuna fisheries to gather the political courage for what they have been too timid to do for years — put in place scientifically sound recovery plans for this critically endangered fish.”

Tudela and others believe that the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas ( ICCAT) — comprised of member countries, many of whom have an interest in maintaining the tuna trade and in theory the species — is in a better position than CITES to ensure that tuna populations are sustainable.

Post-conference strategy

The disappearance of tigers brings a clear indication that it is not the listing of the species that ensures its protection, but strong enforcement at the range state coupled with social awareness. If demand drops, commercial and economic pressure will lessen, as will resistance to enforcing the law. Poachers will move on and find a new beast to exploit.

Bearing this in mind, post-summit strategies should focus on strengthening governance, enforcement and compliance of the Convention at a national level.

The World Bank, for instance, noted during the meeting that they were assisting developing countries with natural resource management and good governance as well as the Global Tiger Initiative. They stressed that the goal of the global tiger programme was to double the number of tigers by 2022 and to halt all trade in tiger parts through good governance.

Countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, those of ASEAN, and now India, have special units of wildlife crime control to which dedicated officials are appointed to strengthen enforcement and compliance. What post-conference meetings — i.e., standing committees and working groups — should examine is whether a similar unit can be set up in all 173 countries that are party to the Convention.

Challenges of global data

A well-structured data collection and analysis framework is also mandatory to see that there is effective enforcement at a grass roots level.

However, even where good governance exists, complete compliance is often not achieved due, in part, to high security requirements imposed on enforcement-related information sharing from one level to the next (e.g., from the state to central level or between two countries). This inhibits timely information flow and enforcement organizations can become reluctant to genuinely share information as they fear that controlling information that has left their domain will be difficult. For this, and other reasons, there has not been any successful model since CITES came into existence in 1973.

The first attempt to develop an information system for monitoring enforcement of CITES  was in 1997, when the CITES secretariat introduced the aptly named Trade Infraction and Global Enforcement Recording System (TIGERS). TIGERS facilitated the recording of information about wildlife crime and illicit trade received from a variety of sources, especially from CITES management authorities and from national enforcement agencies.

The system, however, was not for national-level usage as it contained global information on wildlife crime that was supposed to be kept confidential by the CITES secretariat. Hence, sharing information from TIGERS with all CITES parties was not possible.

During COP14 of CITES, held in the Netherlands in 2007, the secretariat admitted that its reporting process regarding compliance to the convention was poor, primarily because submission of information from the parties to the convention was insufficient.

Positively, last week’s Doha meeting decided to establish an illegal trade database working group and seek external funding to support these activities.  It was recommended by COP15 that the database should be established in line with the EU TWIX model.

Wildlife Enforcement Monitoring System

Since 2005, United Nations University (UNU), has been researching to create an effective information system model through the Wildlife Enforcement Monitoring System ( WEMS) initiative.

WEMS could help in overcoming the challenges reported in the previous cases. The idea is, instead of focusing on developing global systems, to direct resources to strengthening the national capacity of states (parties to the convention) to collect, compile and analyze information on wildlife crime. This information can then be brought to a common discussion table (either during CITES meetings, standing committees or workshops).

The UNU is now working with Environmental Systems Research Institute corporation, CIESIN-Columbia University and Bond University in Australia to introduce the WEMS system at the national level.

The first pilot study will be conducted in India. The partnering agencies will be Wildlife India’s Crime Control Bureau and the Ministry of Environment and Forests. The choice of India reflects its reputation as a the hub for information technology research and one of the fastest growing economies in the world. We believe that if WEMS can work well in India, it will be a good model to export to neighboring countries as well.

Photo by: Merec0

The way forward…

CITES, like any convention, faces difficult challenges in getting several competing actors, including national governments, scientists, business groups and conservationists, to agree on decisions that affect them in different ways.

Despite disappointments, what we should look into are the positive developments that have come out of recent decisions. CITES COP15 has had success in raising awareness of these issues amongst the global public, perhaps reflecting the fact that 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity.

It has also been able to unite organisations like the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime ( UNODC), the World Customs Organization ( WCO), INTERPOL and the World Bank to work together for the first time in the enforcement process.

What those concerned about enforcement now need to work on is incentivizing national governments to be part of solutions that protect endangered wildlife. The challenge for multilateral agencies will be to direct sufficient resources towards implementing this goal at the national level, before it is too late to save our most vulnerable species.

CLICK HERE to learn how you can SAVE TIGERS FROM EXTINCTION.

By Carol Smith

World leaders must get their priorities straight or risk global economic upheaval that will be caused by something most of us fail to consider, says a new report. Biodiversity loss will end up affecting even advanced economies because “natural systems that support lives and livelihoods are at risk of collapsing,” says the third Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-3) assessment report. 

“The consequences of this collective failure, if it is not quickly corrected, will be severe for us all,” writes UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his foreword to GBO-3.

In the run-up to International Biodiversity Day on May 22nd, the study confirms how governments have failed spectacularly to deliver on commitments made through the 2002 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to reduce the global rate of biodiversity loss by 2010.

A principal conclusion of the report is that governments must correct the fact that, while pouring money into the financial sector and economic stimulus measures, they have allowed alarming biodiversity declines to occur.

“The news is not good,” says the Executive Secretary of the CBD, Ahmed Djoghlaf, in the very first words of the GBO-3 — which was produced by the CBD secretariat and based on 500 peer-reviewed scientific papers and 110 national reports submitted by governments.

“We continue to lose biodiversity at a rate never before seen in history — extinction rates may be up to 1,000 times higher than the historical background rate,” Djoghlaf states.

Indeed, many scientists contend that we are already undergoing the Earth’s sixth great extinction — though the previous five stemmed from natural events, such as asteroid impacts.

“If the world made equivalent losses in share prices there would be a rapid response and widespread panic, as we saw during the recent economic crisis. The loss of biodiversity, crucial to life on earth, has, in comparison, produced little response. By ignoring the urgent need for action we stand to pay a much higher price in the long term than the world can afford,” says Bill Jackson, Deputy Director General of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

“It can no longer be ‘business as usual’ without there being serious consequences for all life on earth. We need governments and all of society to understand that the biodiversity crisis is real and is happening now. World leaders faced the economic crisis head on. We need that same level of investment and commitment for the environment,” says Simon Stuart, chair of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission.

Biodiversity bail out

The GBO-3 assessment is viewed as one of the milestones of 2010’s International Year of Biodiversity and will be a topic for world leaders at a special high-level segment of the United Nations General Assembly in September. Its conclusions will also be key in negotiations among world governments in Nagoya, Japan, at the 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the CBD in October.

Humanity has fabricated the illusion that somehow we can get by without biodiversity. — Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme

However, more immediately, the IUCN is pushing for groundwork to be laid for an international biodiversity “ bail-out plan”  — a 10-year strategy through which countries would halt and reverse this loss —  at a session of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice to the Convention on Biological Diversity (SBSTTA) currently taking place in Nairobi, Kenya. Decisions taken there will provide the scientific basis for discussions to be held at the Nagoya summit.

“SBSTTA is a crucial step in the process to stop the extinction crisis. If governments accept the science that’s presented to them in Nairobi, we stand a chance of reversing the current loss of biodiversity,” says Sonia Peña Moreno, IUCN Policy Officer for Biodiversity.

“If they choose to reject the fact that the natural world is in real danger, the effects could be devastating.”

How disconnected we are

The GBO-3 study enumerates how many ecosystems are deteriorating and will soon reach ‘tipping points’ where they rapidly degrade or collapse and can no longer serve human beings.

Some of the examples given in the report include:

• The dieback of large areas of the Amazon forest, due to the interactions of climate change, deforestation and fires, with consequences for the global climate, regional rainfall and widespread species extinctions.
• The shift of many freshwater lakes and other inland water bodies to eutrophic or algae-dominated states, caused by the buildup of nutrients and leading to widespread fish kills and loss of recreational amenities.
• Multiple collapses of coral reef ecosystems, due to a combination of ocean acidification, warmer water leading to bleaching, overfishing and nutrient pollution and threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of species directly dependent on coral reef resources.

These types of disasters will have economic consequences because, though we have a tendency to forget it, biodiversity does not just exist for the benefit of ‘nature lovers’ but is in fact integrated into the ecosystems that are supporting humanity.

“Our food comes from supermarkets, our water from the tap, and our medicine from the pharmacy… Or so it often seems. It is easy to forget that all of this, without exception, comes directly or indirectly from nature,” writes IUCN Director General, Julia Marton-Lefèvre on the Debate section of IUCN’s website.

“These are ecosystem services, the services that nature provides, mostly for free. They are the vital support that our societies, economies and cultures need to survive and thrive. The natural infrastructure that provides all of these fundamental services is biodiversity: the enormous variety of plants, animals and their natural habitats, linked intricately and elegantly together in billions of ways.”

The assessment found that as high as 55% of animal and plant species are threatened with extinction. These include many familiar species — such as rhinos, whales, gorillas, blue fin tuna and monarch butterflies — as well as some 23% of plant species and 12% of all bird species. The report also warned that the numbers for less exotic wildlife are falling too. In Britain, the number of farmland birds, such as skylarks, has halved since 1980, and sparrow and starling numbers have dropped by two thirds. Butterflies, honey bees, bumblebees and moths have all seen their numbers plummet.

Many economies remain blind to the huge value of the diversity of animals, plants and other life forms and their role in healthy and functioning ecosystems. — Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme

The GBO-3 warns that the causes of these species’ disappearances — including loss of habitat, climate change, pollution and over-exploitation of resources — are either constant or increasing.

Rallying cries for a new vision

Echoing the words of UN chief Ki-moon in the report’s foreword, experts have no doubt that a ‘new vision’ is desperately needed.

“We can’t afford to forget that all economic activity is linked to nature. We need new targets and a concerted effort to ensure our natural assets are protected,” says Jane Smart, Director of IUCN’s Biodiversity Conservation Group.

“This year we have a one-off opportunity to really bring home to the world the importance of the need to save nature for all life on earth. If we don’t come up with a new big plan now, the planet will not survive,” Smart warns.

Of course she means the planet as we know it. What is most likely is that if we continue as is, humanity will not survive, but the planet will continue on after we are gone, albeit minus innumerable other species thanks to our impact.

On a rare positive note, the 2010 biodiversity target did achieve a few things that show action does indeed have an impact and provides a basis for further work. For one, tools to support particular species or ecosystems can have significant and measurable results — the report gives as an example that recent government policies to curb deforestation have been followed by declining rates of forest loss in some tropical countries. Further, some 170 countries now have national biodiversity strategies and action plans.

On an international level there are hopeful signs too. This week at the meeting in Kenya, momentum has begun to build behind the idea of a global body called the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The panel would aim to “increase dialogue between science and policy”, according to the IUCN.

“IPBES will assess the wealth of information already available on biodiversity, ecosystems and human well-being and will encourage the generation of further research in areas where it is needed,” says Neville Ash, Head of IUCN’s Ecosystems Management Programme.

The decision on the establishment of IPBES will be taken at a meeting of UNEP Member States next month in Korea — the perfect opportunity for the world’s leaders to show the sort of stiff spine they did not at the COP15 climate summit in Copenhagen. Only then will the world’s economic backbone remain in place

Please share this video about efforts in Nairobi National Park to care for a group of black rhino before sending them off to protected parks. (Video opens in new window).

More than 90 per cent of all rhino species have already been wiped out. We must act now before it’s too late. Join our campaign to save these endangered species from extinction.