The origins of UN World Wildlife Day – from little things big things can grow!

The origins of UN World Wildlife Day – from little things big things can grow!

John E. Scanlon AO, CITES Secretary-General, 2010-2018

(Chinese language version)

Here’s a short story about how a collective passion for wildlife overcame a lack of resources to create the largest global annual celebration of the world’s wildlife!

It all started with the Government of Thailand’s generous offer to host CITES CoP16 in Bangkok, which was accepted by acclamation at the conclusion of CoP15 in Doha, Qatar in 2010. Given the three yearly cycle of CITES CoPs, CoP16 would fall in the same year as the 40th anniversary of the Convention, which was signed at a Plenipotentiary Conference held in Washington DC on 3 March 1973.

In preparing for CoP16 and CITES 40th Anniversary, I was busy reading all of the background materials on the Washington DC Conference. It was co-hosted by the US Department of State, with the Department of the Interior, and I noticed that the Host Government had branded the 1973 event as ‘the World Wildlife Conference’, which had a great ring to it!

As I was researching all of this background, my colleague, Juan Carlos Vasquez wandered into my office. At the time, Juan Carlos had responsibility for communications, along with many other roles, and, as we chatted about the history of the 1973 Conference, I said we should call CITES CoP16 ‘the World Wildlife Conference’, just as they did back in 1973. Juan Carlos agreed, and he went on to say that he also had an idea about 3 March, but that my predecessor didn’t like it or support it.

I asked him to run it past me. After some reluctance on his part, he finally said, perhaps 3 March could be declared as World Wildlife Day? “That’s brilliant” was my reply to Juan Carlos. The timing is perfect, as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of CITES, and perhaps the CoP can even start on 3 March. I said I was going to raise the idea with the Government of Thailand and see if it might consider sponsoring a Resolution to that affect, as the Host Government in this anniversary year.

Over the following months, I was fortunate to have the chance to personally brief the Thai Minister(s) responsible for the CoP in Bangkok. The Government of Thailand decided that the CoP should start on 3 March 2013, and be called the World Wildlife Conference; and we were requested to assist Thailand in preparing a CoP document and draft Resolution to declare 3 March as World Wildlife Day.

Working with our Chief of Governing Bodies, Jonathan Barzdo, and officials in Thailand, we prepared a draft Resolution and supporting document. We shared the drafts with Thailand for its final consideration, and any further changes, and invited the Minister to consider if he wished to officially submit it to the Secretariat. There is a strict deadline for receiving such submissions. The final document and draft Resolution arrived on the final day for submitting documents. It was a close call!

Thailand was an extraordinarily generous host of CoP16 and its proposal to declare 3 March as World Wildlife Day was adopted unanimously, with many strong expressions of support, including from the USA as host of the 1973 Conference. Adopting the Resolution was a CITES declaration – but the Resolution also called for taking steps to make it an official UN day, which required a UN Resolution. Thailand worked extremely fast to transmit the CITES Resolution to New York and, by invitation, I then travelled to New York to work with its UN Mission to help prepare the necessary draft Resolution for adoption by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

There was one slight stumbling block. The UNGA Resolution needed to identify an entity that could facilitate the implementation of the Day. An Ambassador from a UN Member State very active in New York on wildlife issues, called me and asked if the CITES Secretariat was prepared to play this role, but there was a catch – there were no additional resources available to undertake the role! Notwithstanding, I did not hesitate in replying “yes”, as it was a Day that was close to our heart.

I must confess, however, that I expected UNEP may have another view. It is mandated as the UN entity that leads on the environment. It could say, with some justification, that it should facilitate the Day, especially as the objective of the proposed UN World Wildlife Day extended well-beyond the mandate of CITES. Somewhat to my surprise, the draft did not attract UNEP’s attention as it worked its way through the system, and the proposal to invite the CITES Secretariat to facilitate the Day remained unchanged. The entity that is best placed to facilitate UN World Wildlife Day may, however, need to be revisited at some point, given how the Day has evolved since its inception.

It was on 20 December 2013, at its 68th session, that the UNGA unanimously proclaimed 3 March – the day of signature of CITES in 1973 – as UN World Wildlife Day, to celebrate and raise awareness of the world’s wild animals and plants! This was fantastic news, but it was less than three months before the first observance of the Day was due to be celebrated! We had agreed to facilitate the Day, but we had no additional resources to do so. It was going to take a ‘heavy lift’ from the small team in the Secretariat and we needed to move fast.

My emphasis was that while 3 March was the date on which CITES was signed, UN World Wildlife Day was not about CITES; it went well beyond trade issues and addressed all wild animals and plants, not just those listed under the Convention. We needed a dedicated UN World Wildlife Day logo, website and social media, to distinguish between the Day and the entity, CITES, that was invited to facilitate it - while noting that CITES, through its own mandate, would also contribute towards the observances.

Following a massive effort by the Secretariat team, we celebrated the first ever observance of UN World Wildlife Day in the UN Palais des Nations, Geneva, on 3 March 2014 with an all-star cast, including the (then) UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, President of the Swiss Confederation, Didier Burkhalter, and Ambassador of Thailand, Thani Thongphakdi.

'Let's Go Wild for Wildlife'

The theme was ‘Let’s Go Wild for Wildlife’ and it was fantastic to hear the Secretary-General conclude his remarks on the Day with these five words! The UN Secretary-General also launched the stunning ‘Wild and Precious’ photo exhibition, and his personal involvement in the first observance of UN World Wildlife Day gave it massive momentum. ?

Alongside preparing for this high-level event, we managed to release a UN World Wildlife Day logo (in the six official UN languages), which remains the logo today, a website, and a Twitter account in time for the first observance, none of which was branded as CITES, to reflect the all-embracing nature of the Day.

And it wasn’t just at the global level that we got traction, but also at the national level. China led the way in fully embracing the observance of the Day right from the outset, with lots of credit due to Yuan Liu, who was leading our work on livelihoods, and who took over communications from Juan Carlos in 2015.

During my term as Secretary-General, I had the great pleasure of leading the Secretariat team during the first five observances of UN World Wildlife Day, the themes being: ?‘Let’s Go Wild for Wildlife’ (2014); ‘It’s time to get serious about wildlife crime’ (2015); ‘The future of wildlife is in our hands’ (2016); ‘Listen to the Young Voices’ (2017); and ‘Big Cats - Predators Under Threat’ (2018).

During this time, as requested by the UNGA and CITES Resolutions, we engaged multiple partners, including UN Headquarters, UNDP, UNEP, UNODC, and UN Stamps, as well as large and small NGOs. We launched film festivals and poster competitions and more, all with no additional resources, which is a great tribute to the small but highly dedicated team, and most particularly Juan Carlos and Yuan Liu - ?along with our many committed partners in the UN and beyond. The success of UN World Wildlife Day exceeded all of our expectations.

From humble, and almost accidental, beginnings, UN World Wildlife Day has, in rapid time, grown to become the preeminent global annual celebration of wildlife, a day on which the world can come together to celebrate and raise awareness of the millions of wild animals and plants we share this beautiful planet with, and how important they are to our own well-being.

It just goes to show how, from little things, big things can grow - Happy UN World Wildlife Day 2022!

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Photos from the global celebration of the first observance of UN World Wildlife Day 2014

Photos from 2014 country level celebrations: China, Egypt, Kenya, Peru and Thailand

My video message for UN World Wildlife Day 2014 (and for 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018)

Photos from 40th Anniversary celebration of CITES, 3 March 2013

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UN World Wildlife Day 2022

The latest report of IPBES, finds that “Safeguarding biodiversity and ecosystems is fundamental to climate resilient development, in light of the threats climate change poses to them and their roles in adaptation and mitigation.” This year, the theme for UN World Wildlife Day is ‘Recovering key species for ecosystem restoration’, reflecting the broad and all-embracing nature of the Day. Remember the hashtag #RecoverKeySpecies!