Armenia and Colombia have announced their intention to create a new international coalition of action to recover endangered species: the Coalition of Action to Recover Endangered Species (CARES). They announced this during the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity being held in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.
CARES is an international intergovernmental initiative that aims to accelerate the conservation and recovery of endangered species, contributing to the implementation of Target 4 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
The initiative is co-led by Armenia and Colombia, and the Reverse the Red Action Partnership serves as the secretariat.
Armenian Deputy Minister of Environment Aram Meymaryan explained during a press conference that the fourth target of the of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework calls for urgent measures to prevent the extinction of species due to human activities, as well as to ensure their conservation and restoration.
The CARES initiative is designed to help countries achieve tangible results in this regard. Cooperation focused on individual species is necessary, since general measures—preserving and restoring habitats, combating invasive species, or reducing climate risks—may not be enough for each specific endangered species. Each species faces unique threats and requires specific approaches to recovery, he said.
Targeted actions should be based on scientific data and an assessment of the state of each species. CARES will enable countries to benefit from each other's experience, gain access to practical tools and methods for species recovery, as well as cooperate with an international network of experts, Meymaryan added.
Such an approach is of fundamental importance for Armenia. Species conservation requires close coordination between the scientific community, government agencies, and practical steps taken on the ground. The success of this partnership should ultimately be assessed by the state of nature itself: have threats decreased? Have the prospects for species survival improved? Are their populations recovering? The shared goal is to ensure that species that are under threat today have safer conditions for survival and recovery in the wild tomorrow, noted the deputy minister of environment of Armenia.
He added that Armenia will be happy if neighboring countries also joined this coalition.
David Felipe Olarte Amaya, Deputy Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development of Colombia, in turn, informed that within two months, cooperation had been established also with the Bezos Earth Fund and the Reverse the Red Action Partnership.
He explained that within the framework of the CARES coalition, Armenia and Colombia are joining forces, engaging other countries in concrete steps aimed at species recovery, scientific cooperation, as well as the consolidation of resources and potential.
They are very happy that about 17 countries have already joined this coalition, the Colombian official added.