Halt Extinction, Protect Genetic Diversity and Manage Human Wildlife Conflict
Ensure urgent management actions to halt human induced extinction of known threatened species and for the recovery and conservation of species, in particular threatened species, to significantly reduce extinction risk, as well as to maintain and restore the genetic diversity within and between populations of native, wild and domesticated species to maintain their adaptive potential, including through in situ and ex situ conservation and sustainable management practices, and effectively manage human-wildlife interactions to minimize human-wildlife conflict for coexistence.
𝗜𝗻 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗱
Life needs room to live.
The loss of natural habitats has devastated biodiversity across the planet. The first three targets offer a hopeful path forward. But once we give life room to live, we must also let it live.
Every manifestation of life is part of a living system — a wonderful, humming engine that powers the planet’s life-force.
Instead of cherishing and protecting this family of life, we’ve been hunting and exploiting species relentlessly, pushing many to extinction. We are dutifully unraveling the delicate web of life in a self-destructive, irreversible way. Species are vanishing at an alarming rate.
Greed and selfishness play a significant role on many levels — from the industrial extraction of resources to the poaching of elephants for ivory. But the deeper drivers behind species loss are systemic.
Wildlife faces some of the the greatest threats in regions burdened by conflict and poverty — places where daily survival outweighs long-term conservation. If we want lasting solutions, it will take more than environmental policy; such policies can only succeed in peaceful, democratic societies.
This is especially urgent in Africa, where colonialism — and the corruption that followed as multinational corporations replaced monarchs — shattered governance and stability. The transition didn’t bring liberation. It brought new, often more insidious forms of injustice.
It’s easy to condemn violent militias like the Lord’s Resistance Army. Harder — but necessary — is acknowledging how centuries of Western greed laid the foundations for these crises. Even today, foreign corporations profit by propping up undemocratic regimes, perpetuating cycles of poverty, conflict, and environmental destruction.
As long as these commercial interests dictate the region’s fate, true independence and democracy will remain out of reach. Conflict will persist, and the exploitation of both people and life will continue.
Even in more stable parts of the world, poverty still drives extinction. Anyone would kill a protected animal if it meant feeding their children. Morality is easy when you can afford it.
This makes one truth undeniable:
Conservation is inseparable from democracy, equity, and economic justice. Protecting biodiversity is only possible if we also protect people’s rights.