"Listen to the young voices" is this year's theme for the World Wildlife Day beinh celebrated today 3rd of March.
This year's theme of the WWD2017 calls for the youth to be engaged and empowered and gives us new opportunity to provide incentives to the youth to tackle conservation issues. It is also an opportunity for them to engage with one another and together forge an inspired path to a better world.
Given that almost one quarter of the world’s population is aged between 10 and 24, vigorous efforts need to be made to encourage young people, as the future leaders and decision makers of the world, to act at both local and global levels to protect endangered wildlife.
World Wildlife Day is an opportunity to celebrate the many beautiful and varied forms of wild fauna and flora and to raise awareness of the multitude of benefits that conservation provides to people. At the same time, the Day reminds us of the urgent need to step up the fight against wildlife crime, which has wide-ranging economic, environmental and social impacts.
Wildlife has an intrinsic value and contributes to the ecological, genetic, social, economic, scientific, educational, cultural, recreational and aesthetic aspects of sustainable development and human well-being. For these reasons, all member States, the United Nations system and other international organizations, as well as civil society, non-governmental organizations and individuals, are invited to observe and to get involved in this global celebration of wildlife. Local communities can play a positive role in helping to curb illegal wildlife trade.
Most alarming challenges
Among the most alarming challenges that wildlife faces today include habitat loss, climate change and poaching. Poaching and trafficking of wildlife is now the most immediate threat to many species, whether charismatic or less known. The fate of the world’s wildlife will soon be in the hands of the next generation. The pressing need for enhanced action to ensure the survival of wildlife in its natural habitats must be imparted from generation to generation, and the youth should have the opportunity to communicate the conservation goals to a wider society.
There might be some efforts for humans to look after wildlife like putting them in some of the world's zoos where we are able to visit or see them and in breeding-centered enclosures to ensure that their species exist for the next generation of humans, but are these enough? Or do we need to act more?
For the implementation of the World Wildlife Day, the secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species ofk Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), collaborates with other relevant United Nations organizations to facilitate the impeemgation.
Dolphins in one ocean park enclosure where tourists are able to view them (Annalyn Violata) Source: Annalyn Violata
With 183 Member States, CITES remains one of the world's most powerful tools for biodiversity conservation through the regulation of trade in wild fauna and flora.
Background
On 20 December 2013, the Sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly decided to proclaim 3 March as World Wildlife Day to celebrate and raise awareness of the world’s wild fauna and flora. The date is the day of the adoption of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 1973, which plays an important role in ensuring that international trade does not threaten the species’ survival.
Previously, 3 March had been designated as World Wildlife Day in a resolution made at the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES (CoP16) held in Bangkok from 3 to 14 March 2013. The CITES resolution was sponsored by the Kingdom of Thailand, the Host of CITES CoP16, which trnansmitted the outcomes of CITES CoP16 to the UN General Assembly.
