Date: 2009/11/07
WAZA calls on World leaders to combat Climate Change
The petition reads as follows:
An urgent message to world leaders.
Through our organisations, we,
directors of the international zoo and aquarium community, collectively
engage
with and educate 600 million visitors each year, and conduct extensive
conservation activities in the wild and in our zoos and aquariums.
We send an urgent message to world leaders, stressing the extreme
gravity of
the climate change threat facing wildlife and natural systems.
An agreement in Copenhagen to reduce atmospheric CO₂ to
the safe
level of <350 ppm is the only way to give the international
conservation
community a real chance to manage the negative effects of climate change
on the
natural world.
Through concerted and immediate action, this target is achievable. To
avoid
potentially catastrophic consequences for humanity and wildlife, it is
essential.
Dr Jo Gipps, Chair of the WAZA Conservation and Sustainability Committee, concludes: "We are facing an unprecedented increase in the rate of human-induced species loss, all around the world. Limiting levels of atmospheric CO2 to 350 ppm will go a long way towards helping conservationists save species threatened by the negative impacts of climate change. We must all, including the world zoo and aquarium community, act now, before it's too late."
For more information about the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change please click here
The World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) is a global organisation that harmonises the principles, policies, practices and strategy of over 1,300 leading zoos and aquariums. WAZA is the unifying representative of the global zoo and aquarium community and works in partnership with IUCN, national governments and non-governmental organiations to ensure high standards of animal welfare and to achieve conservation in zoos and aquariums (ex situ) and in nature (in situ).