Wildlife gains bring good news to cheer
AS 2016 headed towards closure there were that many bad news stories, including last minute celebrity departures, so I thought some good news from the World Wide Fund for Nature was in order.
After a century of constant decline, the number of wild tigers is on the rise. Around 3,890 tigers now exist in the wild, according to data released in April. That’s up from an estimated 3,200 reported in 2010. WWF works with governments, law enforcement and local communities to advocate zero-tolerance for tiger poaching across Asia and uses the latest technology to protect and connect fragile tiger habitats.
All legal trade of pangolins, the world’s most trafficked mammals, ended thanks to an international agreement to further protect the critically-endangered species from extinction.
Countries decided to strengthen existing protections at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), a global agreement between governments to follow rules to monitor, regulate or ban international trade in species under threat.
In spite of all the election shenanigans, the United States finalised new regulations that will help shut down commercial elephant ivory trade within its borders and stop wildlife crime overseas. The change in US elephant ivory policy shifts the burden to the seller to prove that a piece of ivory is legal – a significant advancement in enforcement efforts.
America’s Arctic will be free of new offshore oil and gas drilling, at least for the next five years. The US government’s latest offshore drilling plan, which determines where companies can compete for leases through 2022, does not include auctions for access to federal waters off Alaska’s northern coast.
WWF and 225,000 activists opposed drilling in the Arctic’s Beaufort and Chukchi seas due to the tremendous risk to indigenous communities, wildlife and their environment.
The bison – a resilient and iconic species roaming the Northern Great Plains – now serves as the national mammal of the United States.
In a show of bipartisan support, the US House of Representatives passed the National Bison Legacy Act on April 26, celebrating a species once on the brink of extinction.
In the Maasai Mara, WWF installed a new thermal infrared camera that can identify poachers from afar by their body heat – even in the dead of night – and it has since transformed the way rangers track down and apprehend criminals.
Since its introduction in March, rangers have arrested more than two dozen poachers.
The longest barrier reef in the northern hemisphere received a reprieve from seismic-surveying in October.
Officials in Belize agreed to suspend the seismic portion of offshore oil and gas exploration after an outcry from concerned citizens, national civil society groups and international conservation organisations and their supporters.
The giant panda was downgraded from ‘endangered’ to ‘vulnerable’ on the global list of species at risk of extinction, demonstrating how an integrated approach can help save our planet’s vanishing biodiversity. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) announced the positive change to the giant panda’s official status in the Red List of Threatened Species, pointing to the 17 per cent rise in the population in the decade up to 2014, when a nationwide census found 1,864 giant pandas in the wild in China.