The right and wrong ways to protect endangered species

As 2023 starts, can we be hopeful that leaders increasingly understand climate change and the degradation and despoilment of our planet and all its human and non-human inhabitants? The results of December’s United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) give some reason for optimism. 

Chaired by China and hosted by Canada, the meeting saw the signature of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. The framework seeks to address biodiversity loss, restore ecosystems and protect indigenous rights. It includes measures to halt and reverse nature loss, including putting 30 percent of the planet and 30 percent of degraded ecosystems under protection by 2030 — the so-called 30-by-30 deal.

The ambitious deal lines up with the urgency of the collective task, for humans are causing the largest loss of life since the death of the dinosaurs. We are in the middle of the “Anthropocene,” and it’s bringing a mass murder of life on earth. Today 1 million species are at risk of extinction; animal populations have collapsed 69 percent in the last few decades, and still, too few citizens comprehend what is going on. 

If COP15 signals leaders understand what must be done, we can start the new year with a degree of ecosystem and climate optimism, for plans are needed if goals are to be recognized and achieved. But sobriety is also warranted, for the details and implementation matter if we are to slow the mass extinction. 

Two recent examples show how bad and good practices can unfold.

The Biden administration and Congress just demonstrated the conflict between goals and actual implementation, in a decision that could spell the extinction of the North Atlantic Right Whale, now down to 340 animals from 500 a decade ago. The whale is being driven to extinction because it gets fatally injured and tangled in the vertical lines attached to buoys of fishing gear used by the New England lobster fishing industry, and by boat strikes. 

Action to halt this human-caused extinction led the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association to propose a ban on vertical line traps by what was likely to be 2024, and minimum vessel speeds and distance from whales. However, alarmingly, this crucial regulatory change has been pushed back from 2024 to 2028, after sustained successful pressure from the lobster lobby, supported by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), where many of those self-employed fishermen live. Once again, short-sighted economic interests trumped ecosystem degradation and the survival of a critically endangered animal. Yet research shows changing the trap and line design does not cut the lobster catch but could make the difference between extinction and existence for these sentient beings. 

If some senators are ill-informed and demonstrating what not to do, other communities are showing us how to respond and align COP15 conservation goals with achievements, by protecting ecosystems and organisms.

Take the case of the Union Island Gecko, a reptile the size of a paperclip. The gecko is restricted to a 123-acre area of forest in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The gecko was only discovered by scientists in 2005. Rich pet owners wanted them, and poachers responded, driving down the population by 80 percent. The defenseless gecko ended up being the most heavily trafficked reptile from the Eastern Caribbean. 

Conservationists responded by educating the local population, creating an understanding of the species’ importance, setting up cameras and recruiting locals to parole and protect their forest. Locals came to feel ownership of the rescue and solution, not resist it. As a result, the gecko’s numbers have rebounded. A recent survey shows the population increased from 10,000 in 2018 to around 18,000 today, a major victory. 

What these two examples show is that communities using an ecosystem, or an adjacent resource that is damaging to a species in question, often pick the short-term status quo over the better long-term outcome, especially if they are not educated and supported as they change practices and behavior. Governments must bridge this gap and not cave to lobbyists who are willfully ignorant of that which they despoil and destroy. To achieve COP15 ecosystem and species goals, which we should all support, states will need to step in again and again to underpin the necessary changes. 

The North Atlantic Right Whale example demonstrates we must act fast. The Union Island Gecko shows us that doing so can deliver swift results.

Preserving our ecosystems is a massive essential task. We must all change how we think and act. Doing so swiftly can help ensure life on earth is sustained in its remarkable diversity. Continuing with current practices dooms us and our economies, for we all rely on the planet’s ecosystems for survival. 

Our leaders have signaled they understand this at COP15.  Now is the time for governments and communities to pursue a myriad of goals on the ground to change our hope into large and small living victories. 

Stuart P.M. Mackintosh is the author of “Climate Crisis Economics.”