AWF explores three World Heritage Sites in Cameroon, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe, where we work with local groups and wildlife authorities to maintain the integrity of protected areas.
Forestry officer Karim Kamisoko is not at his post. Instead of patrolling Bafing Faunal Reserve in southwestern Mali, he and his fellow rangers are 70 kilometers (43 miles) away, taking shelter from Islamist militants who have seized control of much of this part of southwestern Mali. Bafing Faunal Reserve covers 176,000 hectares (435,000 acres), its […]
World Heritage and Biodiversity
We are pleased to bring you this issue on biodiversity and World Heritage sites, focusing on some of the properties most vital to the future of our planet.
These articles were prepared in anticipation of the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) originally planned for October 2020 in Kunming, China, and the designation of a “biodiversity super year”. Many far-reaching decisions concerning the preservation of biodiversity were meant to be taken in 2020. But due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of international meetings including COP 15 could not take place and have been postponed.
Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic is not an isolated phenomenon. Scientific evidence links the emergence of the COVID-19 virus to the breakdown of ecosystems and biodiversity loss. Humankind has been destroying the natural environment at an accelerating rate, putting human populations in contact with new pathogens we are not equipped to control.