A $500m alliance launches to pull threatened species back from the brink
Nine conservation funders will coordinate their money over five years to recover endangered species – while 17 governments led by Colombia and Armenia launch a coalition with the same goal.
Protecting a piece of land is not always enough to save a species. That is the thinking behind the Species Recovery Alliance, unveiled on 16 October in Yerevan, Armenia, on the eve of the COP17 biodiversity summit, held there from 19 to 30 October. Its nine founding members will put more than $500 million over the next five years into bringing threatened species back.
Rather than pooling the money, they will coordinate their investments so they reach more species without overlapping. The founders are Ayers Wild Cat Conservation Trust, Bezos Earth Fund, Colossal Foundation, Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, Fondation Segré, Franklinia Foundation, Rainforest Trust, Re:wild and WildLives Earth.
Why it’s needed
The alliance targets the more than 31,000 species the IUCN Red List classes as extinct in the wild, critically endangered or endangered. According to its backers, 57% of threatened species need targeted action such as captive breeding, habitat restoration or invasive species control. “Protected areas alone cannot save every endangered species,” says Cristián Samper of the Bezos Earth Fund.
In the same days, 17 governments led by Colombia and Armenia launched CARES, the Coalition of Action to Recover Endangered Species – aiming, in the words of Re:wild chief Wes Sechrest, at “making the recovery of threatened species a global conservation priority”.
