September 2015: The Secretariat of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) has announced that Afghanistan is the 121st party to join the Convention. It is inhabited by snow leopard, argali, Bukhara deer and the imperial eagle, all of which are listed under CMS Appendices.

Afghanistan is already a signatory to the Siberian Crane Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and a range state to the MoU on the Conservation of Migratory Birds of Prey, the Bukhara Deer and the Central Asian Mammals Initiative (CAMI). On 1 October 2015, Brazil is slated to join CMS and bring membership to 122 parties.

In other news, government officials, industry, development banks, UN agencies, non-governmental organizations and scientists met in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia from 24-28 August 2015 to address the need for wildlife crossings. Participants adopted the ‘Ulaanbaatar Action Plan on Wildlife-friendly Infrastructure’ to implement the CMS guidelines adopted at the eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP11) to CMS, designed to mitigate the impact of linear infrastructure and related disturbances on mammals across Central Asia. The guidelines are one of the tools designed to improve conservation action on the ground under the CMS CAMI.

Finally, during a marine turtle conservation seminar and workshop held from 1-3 September 2015 in Terengganu, Malaysia, organized to address threats to marine turtles in the country, participants recommended: reviewing Malaysia’s current National Plan of Action (NPOA) on Marine Turtles; reactivating the Malaysian Sea Turtle Working Group; implementing a nationwide ban on the selling of marine turtle eggs; and that Malaysia join the CMS. Malaysia is party to the CMS MoU on the Conservation and Management of Marine Turtles and their Habitats of the Indian Ocean and South-East Asia (IOSEA). [CMS News on Afghanistan] [CMS Notification 2015/018] [CMS News on Safe Passage for Mongolian Wildlife] [CMS News on Malaysian Marine Turtles]