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About
WHMSI
2003 Conference
2006 Conference
Identified
Priority Needs
Tool
Matrix
Draft
Tool Matrix
Interim
Steering Committee
Updates
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Background
The need to work collaboratively on a regional basis has escalated in the last
century as threats to wildlife populations in the Western Hemisphere become
more complex, with greater impacts on biodiversity operating across broader
geographic scales. Modern threats to wildlife in the Western Hemisphere present
challenges that can only be addressed effectively by the strategic alignment
of stakeholders in wildlife conservation throughout the Americas.
In their Plan of Action resulting from the Summit of the Americas meeting in
Quebec in 2001, Leaders in the Western Hemisphere issued a call to “advance
hemispheric conservation of plants, animals and ecosystems through…the
development of a hemispheric strategy to support the conservation of migratory
wildlife throughout the Americas.” To address this
call, representatives from 25 nations and over 40 international wildlife conservation
groups and stakeholder representatives held a Western Hemisphere Migratory Species
Conference in October 2003 in Chile. Participants agreed to establish a more
permanent mechanism for hemispheric-level cooperation on migratory wildlife conservation.
Purpose and Description:
The Western Hemisphere Migratory Species Initiative (WHMSI) would seek
to contribute significantly to the conservation of the migratory species
of the Western Hemisphere by strengthening communication and cooperation
among nations, international conventions and civil society, and by expanding
constituencies and political support. The initiative would include
all migratory species, covering taxa as diverse as birds, marine turtles,
marine and terrestrial mammals, fishes and invertebrates.
Objectives include, among others, to maintain a compilation of pertinent
conservation resources; promote the adoption of best management practices;
mitigate primary threats; restore populations of threatened species;
facilitate the generation of key information; produce a catalogue of
areas of importance for migratory species; articulate ongoing and planned
conservation efforts; communicate and raise awareness of the ecological,
economic and cultural importance of migratory species; and increase the
constituency that supports the conservation of migratory species, including
through the promotion of local initiatives.
All entities that support the vision, mission and objectives of this
initiative are invited to be partners in its implementation. The strength
of this initiative is broad-based collaboration. Consequently, only issues
upon which there is consensus will be treated.
Benefits/Justification for Initiative:
- Enables countries of the Hemisphere to engage one another in the
earliest stages of developing new programs and activities. (Virtually
all existing initiatives for migratory species in the Hemisphere have
originated from North-America, and to a lesser extent Europe, with
limited Latin American engagement in the conception of such initiatives.)
- Creates a forum which provides broader international input into on-going
programs and facilitates their being better adapted to local conditions
and needs.
- Promotes governments, NGOs and the private sector collaborating as
equal partners.
- Strengthens cross-cultural understanding of differing conservation
perspectives and priorities.
- Promotes the unification of disparate conservation efforts.
- Serves to establish and highlight hemispheric priorities to better
focus policy direction and the delivery of funding support.
- Provides countries a mechanism for delivering high quality products
to address growing concern by the American people for the aesthetic,
scientific, cultural, recreational and economic values of migratory
birds.
- Does not impose additional obligations on the countries of the hemisphere,
nor does it contradict any current initiative regarding wildlife conservation
and management.
- Enables countries to fulfill their commitments to cooperation on
wildlife conservation under various treaties, particularly the Convention
on Nature Protection and Wildlife Conservation in the Western Hemisphere,
as well as the Summit of the Americas process.
Relevant Links:
Plan
of Action from the Summit of Americas meeting in Quebec, 2001
2003
Western Hemisphere Migratory Species Conference
Convention
on Nature Protection and Wildlife Preservation in the Western Hemisphere |
