International Biodiversity Day - 22 May - Main contents

Let’s make 2016 a game-changer on biodiversity

The urgency of the current wildlife crisis was sadly brought home to us yet again recently by the killing of three rangers and injuring of two others in one of the parks that the EU supports - Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo - on 23 April.

A week later, in a bold act of defiance to all traffickers and consumers of illegal wildlife products, Kenya set fire to 100 tonnes of seized ivory, and 1 tonne of seized rhino horn - estimated to be worth €106 million on the black market - to send the message that elephants and rhinos are worth more alive than dead.

After all, the economic benefits of conservation are visible to see. For example, tourism revenue in Rwanda rose from $62m in 2000 to $303m in 2014, with gorilla permits counting for the largest portion.

I hope that 2016 will be remembered as a turning point for global biodiversity: the year we reverse the terrible rise in wildlife crime and species extinctions, and get all partners to agree on the need to protect ecosystems for our long-term benefit.

The Action Plan against Wildlife Trafficking that the Commission proposed in February should help to combat the growing trade in wildlife products, with its associated violence and corruption. We will continue to support law enforcement agencies in tackling the trade in wildlife products in Africa and Asia.

And we have this week published the full regional analysis of our ‘Larger than Elephants’ study which sets out a strategic approach to wildlife conservation in Africa. This looks at what we can learn from past conservation efforts and proposes a concrete way forward for each region. Similar studies are now being prepared for Asia, Latin America and African coastal and marine areas, which will help inform our project identification for the years to come.

Yet while the EU has earmarked €800 million for 2014-2020 for direct support to biodiversity in developing countries, we cannot do this alone - we need other partners to help multiply this figure to address the scale of the challenge we face.

We look forward to working with our partners to integrate biodiversity into all development programmes, to preserve natural capital and wildlife populations for today and for future generations.