14 October 2014: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) has released the first fact sheet from the Collaborative Partnership on Sustainable Wildlife Management (CPW), which outlines key issues and challenges associated with sustaining wildlife populations and habitats over time while considering the needs of people.

The fact sheet, titled ‘Sustainable Wildlife Management and Biodiversity,’ notes that wildlife management needs to address species and habitat loss, illegal trade in wildlife, and human-wildlife conflict. It underscores that management systems need to make use of traditional and local knowledge, as well as biological and ecological information. The fact sheet emphasizes the need to work with local communities to provide benefits from wildlife, build public awareness of sustainable wildlife management benefits and techniques, and build on international commitments for biodiversity conservation and sustainable use.

The document also identifies challenges such as a lack of organizational capacity, weak governance, high levels of poverty and the impacts of climate change. It calls for additional research on the socio-economic value of species, long-term drivers of loss, and the effectiveness of sustainable wildlife management techniques.

CPW is a partnership among a number of organizations and agencies including FAO, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), and the CGIAR consortium’s Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), among others. [Publication: Sustainable Wildlife Management and Biodiversity]