2003 Conference |
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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 North America, Latin America and the Caribbean. As a result of a growing need for regional cooperation on wildlife conservation in the Western Hemisphere, on October 6-8, 2003 representatives from 25 government wildlife agencies in the Western Hemisphere and over 40 international conservation groups and stakeholders came together in Termas de Puyehue,Chile, to participate in the Western Hemisphere Migratory Species Conference. The purpose of this conference was to develop cooperative strategies for conservation of migratory species and collaboration more broadly on a wide array of wildlife conservation issues among the countries of the Western Hemisphere. With a visionary disregard of traditional geographical and political borders, and an expanding mandate to look at conservation of all migratory species and common wildlife conservation issues, government wildlife agency representatives and non-government organization participants of the Conference created a forum for collaboration and cooperation to conserve the valuable wildlife of the Western Hemisphere. |