Knowing When to Stop: How Wildlife Organizations Still Help By Stepping Aside

Wildlife organizations that outlive their usefulness are encouraged to step aside in favour of consolidations, which could increase efficiency and effectiveness in saving endangered species around the globe and preserving the environment.

“In our view, various broader international conventions could be used in place of other wildlife conservation agreements,” explain the authors of the article. “The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, for example, could take over the residual tasks of the Montreal Protocol.”

The International Whaling Commission (IWC), known for implementing a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1985, has bowed out gracefully now that the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora regulates the international trade of endangered wildlife, including all IWC-regulated whale species. Moreover, the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals could be a potential global whale observatory, alerting the world of negative trends in any species. Today, whale species’ most prominent threats are ship strikes, pollution, and climate change. The topic of outdated organizations could be an essential agenda item at the UN Summit of the Future, which takes place in New York, United States, where world leaders gather to focus on ways to safeguard the future.