River dolphins still swim in some of the world’s greatest rivers, but all six surviving species are threatened with extinction. This site provides the best global source of knowledge and solutions that can boost efforts to safeguard these iconic animals – and benefit the people and nature that depend on their rivers.

WILDLABS is home to the global conservation technology community of 8,600 people in 120 countries discussing 1,500 topics like biologging, camera traps, and machine learning. With engaging spaces to ask questions and collaborate together, share your own work, and discover new ideas and innovations, WILDLABS is your platform to connect with #Tech4Wildlife experts and projects from around the world.

Most reports of collisions between whales and vessels involve large whales, but all species can be affected.  Collisions with large vessels often go unnoticed and unreported. Animals can be injured or killed and vessels can sustain damage.  Serious and even fatal injuries to passengers have occurred involving hydrofoil ferries, whale watching vessels and recreational craft.

According to Paragraph 7.4 of the AEWA Action Plan the Agreement Secretariat, in coordination with the Technical Committee and the Parties, shall prepare a series of international reviews necessary for the implementation of the Action Plan, including, inter alia, a Review on the stage of preparation and implementation of Single Species Action Plans. The first such review was presented at MOP4 in 2008.

Due to lack of voluntary funding contributions, the compilation of a full review was not possible for MOP6. The AEWA Secretariat has, however, conducted a limited review of the implementation of eight of the 20 International Single Species Action and Management Plans adopted under the Agreement to date. Information from Range States on the implementation of plans was collected through questionnaires prepared and distributed by the AEWA International Species Working and Expert Group Coordinators. The main conclusions and recommendations are further reflected in the Draft Resolution on the Adoption and Implementation of International Single species and Multi-species Action and Management Plans (AEWA/MOP6 DR6.8).

In addition to the review on the status of implementation of Action and Management Plans, the Secretariat has compiled an overview of the current action- and management planning process under the Agreement, including the AEWA International Species Working and Expert Group framework developed to coordinate their international implementation.

Saving species comprehensively means preventing extinctions, conserving threatened species, and recovering depleted populations of more widespread and abundant species. There is ample evidence that conservation action works. Many species have been saved from extinction or had their status improved, native species and ecosystems have recovered following eradication of invasive alien species from islands, and habitats have been restored and rewilded. The last decade has seen an impressive array of innovation and new technologies, approaches, and solutions providing major opportunities to accelerate our collective impact on species conservation. By sharing experience and expertise, and committing the necessary resources more strategically, we can massively scale up success for species survival, recovery, and persistence at healthy levels.

For most threatened species, a combination of threat abatement and site protection will be enough to allow populations to recover. However, for some other species, typically those at highest risk of extinction, these measures  alone will be insufficient. These species will require targeted interventions, for example through habitat management, supplementary feeding, provision of breeding sites, reintroduction into the wild, translocation, and ex-situ measures (captive breeding in zoos and aquaria, or propagation in botanic gardens).

The Species Conservation Solutions Thematic Community provides a platform for documenting species conservation success from all over the world.  These case studies can be replicated, applied to inspire the best solutions for each species’ challenges, providing resources for the implementation of the Global Species Action Plan (GSAP).

Through PANORAMA, IUCN and EcoHealth Alliance initially aim to promote species conservation solutions with a focus on wildlife and human health, especially the link with zoonotic disease prevention, monitoring, detection and intervention.

This IUCN SSC Position Statement was prepared by the Chair and members of the IUCN Species Survival Commission Human-Wildlife Conflict Task Force in July 2020. At the time of writing, the Task Force is also preparing a comprehensive technical policy and advisory document, the IUCN SSC Guidelines on Human-Wildlife Conflict and Coexistence.

The IUCN SSC Human-Wildlife Conflict Task Force urges governments, non-governmental organizations, researchers, practitioners, community leaders, environmental agencies and others to ensure that efforts to manage human-wildlife conflicts are pursued through well-informed, holistic, and collaborative processes that take into account underlying social, cultural and economic contexts.

Human Wildlife Conflict (HWC) can be defined as ‘negative interactions between people and wild animals, with consequences for both people and their resources and wildlife and their habitats’.

Although humans have coexisted with terrestrial and marine fauna (wildlife) for millennia, growing competition over space and resources means that HWC is a complex and escalating global challenge.

HWC is a significant risk to the survival of many threatened species, and the integrity of ecosystems and protected areas, as well as eroding people’s appreciation of the value of wildlife and their support for associated conservation and resource-management measures that can drive wildlife or nature-based economies.

WCC-2020 Res 101 urges the establishment of development plans which maintain functional and ecological connectivity, minimize Human-Wildlife Conflicts, and optimize opportunities for benefit creation from sustainable wildlife management and it calls for the issue to be addressed by relevant fora, including the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.

As genetic data are frequently applied to give advice to the IWC (including, but not limited to, detection of population structure), there is a need to agree on data quality criteria for currently used DNA marker types (sequences, microsatellites, Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs); possibly nuclear DNA sequencing in the future). The guidelines and considerations on DNA quality provided here represent common practice subject to ongoing discussion and will need future adaptation, as the state-of-the-art of DNA analysis in population genetics progresses.

It is also evident that, although accordance to these guidelines is highly desirable, this does not preclude consideration of genetic work failing to fully meet these standards. Nonetheless, the issues raised below are intended to assist Scientific Committee members in judging the respective reliability of information from genetic studies. In addition, for studies explicitly carried out to give stock definition advice to the IWC, adherence to these guidelines is strongly recommended.

The following case study summarises a SEFARI Think Tank involving the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh and Scottish Natural Heritage. SEFARI Think Tanks are designed to address challenging and often contested research questions of national and international importance. This project brought together experts to address Aichi Target 13 on the conservation of genetic diversity. The project has established a world-first method to help understand and conserve genetic diversity in some of Scotland’s most iconic wild species. This fills a significant gap in addressing this international target, as the practical tool will enable other countries to assess its genetic diversity and compare what has been measured in Scotland.

In 2010, the updated Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity included as its first target (Target 1) the need for ‘An online flora of all known plants.’ With this background in mind, in January 2012 in St Louis, Missouri, U.S.A., representatives from four institutions: the Missouri Botanical Garden, the New York Botanical Garden, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (all members of the Global Partnership for Plant Conservation, GPPC) took the initiative to meet and discuss how to achieve GSPC Target 1 by 2020. The meeting resulted in a proposed outline of the scope and content of a World Flora Online (WFO), as well as a decision to form an international consortium of institutions and organisations to collaborate on providing that content.

The WFO project was subsequently launched in India, at an event held during the 11th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in October 2012 where the COP also adopted a decision welcoming the WFO initiative. In January 2013 a Memorandum of Understanding on the WFO was opened for signature. Up to the end of March 2023, 51 institutions and organisations had signed the MOU.

The WFO is an open-access, Web-based compendium of the world’s plant species. It is a collaborative, international project, building upon existing knowledge and published Floras, checklists and revisions but will also require the collection and generation of new information on poorly know plant groups and plants in unexplored regions.

The project represents a major step forward in developing a consolidated global information service on the world’s flora.

The Global Conservation Consortia (GCC) aim to mobilise a coordinated network of institutions and experts to collaboratively develop and implement comprehensive conservation strategies for priority threatened plant groups.

Our mission is to accelerate effective conservation of global plant diversity. Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) is coordinating a suite of Global Conservation Consortia, which catalyse groups of institutions and experts to collaboratively develop and implement comprehensive strategies to prevent extinction of priority threatened plant groups. Primary objectives include coordinated in situ and ex situ conservation efforts and dissemination of species recovery knowledge.