Amy Fraenkel, Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) Acting Executive-Secretary, and Soumitra Dasgupta, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change of India, have announced the theme for the 13th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 13) to the CMS. The theme of the COP, which will convene from 15-22 February 2020 in India, will be ‘Migratory species connect the planet and together we welcome them home.’

The CMS COP 13 theme was announced during preparatory meetings taking place in Bonn, Germany. The Fourth Meeting of the Sessional Committee of the Scientific Council (ScC-SC4) took place from 12-15 November 2019. It was the last meeting of the Scientific Council before COP 13. Delegates reviewed new proposals to list additional species on the CMS Appendices, including by the CMS COP13, India, which submitted three proposals regarding the Asian Elephant, the Bengal Florican and the Great Indian Bustard, for inclusion on Appendix I, which would afford them strict protections.

With loss and fragmentation of habitat, exacerbated by climate change, as key threats to biodiversity worldwide, CMS COP 13 will highlight the importance of ecological connectivity to better protect migratory wildlife and their habitats. CMS has called for the concept of ecological connectivity, understood as the unimpeded movement of species and the flow of natural processes that sustain life on Earth, to be integrated into the post-2020 global biodiversity framework to be adopted under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2020 in China. [CMS Press Release] [CMS Website]