The UN’s World Wildlife day is a globally important annual event dedicated to wildlife. The theme for 2022 is “Recovering key species for ecosystem restoration”. There are over 8,400 species of critically endangered wild fauna and flora and close to 30,000 species that fall into the endangered or vulnerable category (according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species).
Earth Active’s bespoke advisory services help to identify and protect threatened species across the world. We are experienced at designing mitigation and detailed action plans to minimise negative impacts to key species and to ensure that our projects achieve net gain for Biodiversity. Through projects in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan we have designed protection and additional conservation measures for the Critically Endangered Saiga antelope. This is a keystone species of the Steppe, feeding on plants unsuitable for other herbivores and considerably influencing the steppe vegetation. Recovery to Saiga populations should have knock on positive effects throughout the wider ecosystem.
Vultures, including the globally Endangered Egyptian vulture, are also a keystone species, and their recovery is key in restoring natural Ecosystems. Sometimes labelled ‘nature’s clean-up crew’ vultures play a key role in ecosystem functioning, helping to reduce the spread of diseases by scavenging dead carcasses. Earth Active have recently been working in Georgia, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan to identify and assess project risks to this species, and have designed specialist mitigation and conservation plans to further its recovery.
In 2021, Earth Active designed safeguarding measures for around 30 other globally threatened species, including those with key roles in ecosystem functionality, from apex predators like the Critically Endangered Sumatran tiger to large herbivores and ecosystem engineers such as the Asian elephant.
In 2022, World Wildlife Day will drive the debate towards the imperative need to reverse the fate of the most critically endangered species, to support the restoration of their habitats and ecosystems and to promote their sustainable use by humanity.
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