IUCN released the report ‘Planet on the move: Reimagining conservation at the intersection of migration, environmental change, and conflict’.
- The report calls for reimagining conservation in an era defined by migration, environmental change, and conflict.
Need for New Conservation Approach
- Existence of nexus among migration, environmental change, and conflict: Environmental changes force humans and other species to migrate which may result in conflict for scarce natural resources degrading the environment further and undoing conservation gains.
- Conservation efforts need to respond to this nexus both today and in the future.
- Siloed policies for migration: Migration policies often treat human and wildlife migration separately, despite the planet being a shared space. For instance,
- 1951 Refugee Convention and the 2012 Kampala Convention define human refugees and displaced persons respectively, whereas
- Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals adopted a Programme of Work on Climate Change and Migratory Species in 2014.
Recommendations for New Conservation Approaches
- Address migration, humanitarian and development needs without compromising biodiversity and nature.
- International legal mechanisms to protect ‘environmental migrants’ and resolve conflicts in places of transit and destination.
- Greater synergies between various laws to protect intersecting human and other species migrations
