To mark #WorldWildlifeDay on 3 March, IAR is joining hundreds of NGOs and global brands to highlight the importance of protecting nature. We’re doing this by removing all nature-related elements from our logo for one day. In IAR’s case, that means a logo without any animals.
The message behind the animals’ disappearance is a powerful one: the natural world plays a vital role in every aspect of our lives and a world without wildlife and nature is unthinkable. Yet still we destroy natural habitats and wipe out wildlife species with a wanton disregard for the consequences both for nature and for the planet as a whole. Human actions threaten more species with extinction now than ever before, with around one million species facing extinction, many within decades if urgent action isn’t taken.
Alan Knight OBE, IAR President, said: “Experts estimate that human activity has slashed wildlife populations by 70% in the last 50 years. With the global human population at more than 8 billion, our impact on nature is devastating. Activities like the clearing of forests for farmland, the expansion of roads and cities, logging, hunting, overfishing, water pollution and the transport of invasive species around the globe are altering the natural world at an unprecedented rate and depriving wildlife species of the habitats they need to survive.
“At the same time, a new threat has emerged. Global warming has become a major driver of wildlife decline by shrinking or shifting the local climates that many mammals, birds, insects, fish and plants have evolved to survive in. When combined with the other ways in which humans are damaging the environment, climate change is now pushing a growing number of species closer to extinction.
“The action being taken today by hundreds of NGOs and global brands, is a warning of what’s to come if we don’t act decisively to transform our devastating impact on wildlife and nature into a force for good that aims to protect, restore and conserve our natural world. At the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) in Montreal in December, a historic deal was reached that promised “urgent action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss to put nature on a path to recovery for the benefit of people and planet.” Today, on #WorldWildlifeDay, the need for that action is greater than ever and we urge every individual to keep the pressure up on governments and decision makers to deliver on that promise, for the sake of us all and for the sake of the wildlife and nature that sustains us.”