From the Pantanal to the deep sea: Personal reflections from CMS COP15

Every few years the countries that have signed onto the major international United Nations wildlife conventions as ‘parties’ meet somewhere in the world in huge ‘conferences of parties’ or COPs. The big three wildlife conventions are CITES (the international trade body), CBD (the biodiversity body) and CMS (the Convention for the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals). These COPs suddenly descend on the host nation, with participants arriving from around the globe, to allow new agreements to be forged for animal conservation. Then they disappear again until the next meeting.

Last week it was the turn of the CMS COP15 which was hosted by Brazil in the city of Campo Grande in a labyrinth of temporary and permanent meeting rooms. Campo Grande is probably best known as the ‘gateway to the Pantanal’, the most biodiverse tropical wetland in the world.

In order to accommodate the COP, an area next to a big local shopping mall was converted to host the hundreds of delegates, most of whom arrived and left each day in huge airconditioned coaches that weaved their way through the busy city streets. Meetings went on from early morning to late at night and some three hundred documents were formally considered, many focused on introducing new species onto the appendices of CMS and thereby committing to improve their protection. The list of proposals included Brazilian species such as the Jaguar, the Giant Otter and the Striped Sorubim (a large catfish-like species).

I was privileged to attend as one of the ‘COP-appointed scientific councillors’ – specifically the one focused on marine pollution, a role that I was appointed to two COPs ago. There were several papers and proposals in this thematic area that I had helped to develop in the months leading up to this meeting, working with my great OceanCare colleagues, the CMS secretariat and a team of pollution experts. I will come back to this.

Opening Scenes

But first, let me go back to describing what it is like to attend one of these huge multinational meetings. At this COP, as at its recent predecessors, some sessions included everyone (hence the need for a vast meeting space), others ran in parallel to allow focused consideration and revision of proposals. For the bigger meetings, translation into the three languages of the convention (French, Spanish and English) was provided via headsets.

Both countries and non-governmental organisations, such as OceanCare, can usually speak during the discussions to give advice or offer comment. However, taking the microphone can be a daunting prospect when it is in front of hundreds of people in the great hall and also when it is on a technical issue with many lawyers and other experts. Discussions often focus on just a few words and their meaning. Ultimately, on the last day, all the proposals are gathered up into one closing session, and each one is presented as amended by the preceding working groups (if amendment was agreed).

Keeping Score

Of the forty-one species proposals considered, all went through but one. The one that did not go through, a species of angel shark was withdrawn, although it is not clear to me why it was withdrawn. My guess is that it did not get enough support from other countries in the range used by the species. But let’s ‘accentuate the positive’ here, the snowy owl, the giant otter, three thresher sharks, two hammerhead sharks, several freshwater fish and many sea and shorebirds were successfully listed. So, there is much to celebrate as these species receive additional protection. However, of course, we must not forget the underlying reason for being listed is that the situation of the species is deteriorating.

There was also a proposal to remove a species from Appendix I, the Bukhara deer of central Asia, brought by Uzbekistan. This is the first time a proposal has ever been made to the COP to take a species off an appendix, and it received mixed responses. Clearly if a species recovers so well that it no longer needs extra protection it is a good thing. In this case, the proposal had received a stiff negative review by the CMS scientific council at its meeting last December and at the COP it was withdrawn.

The Ocean COP

There was a lot of focus on marine issues at this COP, at the forefront of which was a potentially ground-breaking resolution, and associated decision, on ‘Conserving Seamount Ecosystems’. This was brought to the COP by Panama and Monaco, and supported by the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition whose membership includes OceanCare.

Seamounts are essentially underwater mountains that rise up from the seabed, but which don’t emerge above the water surface. These submarine structures have many species associated with them including migratory ones which use them as key habitats for feeding and potentially other purposes. The final decisions adopted prioritized protection from destructive fishing practices and overfishing. This will be an important part of the legacy from COP15, providing a roadmap for coordinated international action to protect these unique and important underwater habitats. The lead countries, the Deep Sea Coalition, and all the others that worked tirelessly to come to this successful conclusion should be congratulated.

The other hot marine issue on the agenda was Deep Sea Mining. This had generated huge debate at the previous COP in Uzbekistan in 2024, with some delegates locked in a special meeting group for most of the COP14 week, trying to agree an appropriate form of words. In the intervening years a new report had been produced for CMS on the issue, and this was considered by COP15. The report reconfirmed that too little is known about the effects of this activity on species to allow it to procced. So, after a small debate, COP15 agreed with the previous COP and a version of the new report will be issued and distributed in CMS’s own technical series.

Rivers and currents of communication

One of the huge benefits of these giant meetings is that the world’s media picks up stories and images from them and these get beamed around the globe to the interested public, reminding everyone of the perilous situation of the animals concerned, their very existence and beauty and, of course, our heavy responsibility to help them. The CMS secretariat (a doughty body of expert facilitators, administrators and communicators) just shared the latest statistics on media ‘hits’ with me. They report that the meeting generated to date 5,001 articles published in 28 languages across 85 countries.

And in terms of outcomes COP15 added 40 species, subspecies, and populations to the CMS Appendices, of which 20 were added to Appendix I:

• Pelagic Thresher, Bigeye Thresher, and Common Thresher;
• Scalloped Hammerhead Shark;
• Great Hammerhead Shark;
• Lesser Yellowlegs;
• Hudsonian Godwit;
• Hudsonian Whimbrel;
• nine species of Gadfly Petrel (Barau’s, Vanuatu, Black-capped, Zino’s, Magenta, Atlantic, Fiji, Mascarene, and Beck’s);
• the Zimbabwe population of Cheetah;
• Striped Hyena; and
• Giant Otter.

And finally – closing thoughts.

Personally, for me, these events are also a gathering of friends from across the world who are variously sitting in national delegations or the NGO rows. Some of us have worked together for decades. So, there is also an aspect of catching up with people and typically working with them to a common purpose, which is a great bonus! But what about the marine pollution work you might cry!

It largely progressed through the various stages of the COP without much debate and largely unscathed. There was one small loss in the resolution where a country took exception (for reasons still not clear to me) to the concept of addressing emerging pollution. This could not be rescued. However, that aside, everything else was agreed and especially importantly, we can now put in place a working group of experts to guide CMS actions in this broad topic area.

My lasting impressions of this COP and the city of Campo Grande include:

• The beautiful blue and yellow macaws that could often be found outside my hotel and the COP meeting area – typically up high in a palm tree;
• The peaceful capybaras in the local park;
• The legion of smart-suited and bearded lawyers from Brazil;
• The long cavalcade of the President of Brazil – seen from the window of a local pizzeria – with its motorcycle escort – as it passed along the road (he had generously taken time to attend an opening ‘high level’ session of the COP);
• The inspiring interventions from friends and colleagues, including of course those beautifully enunciated via the OceanCare microphone;
• The heat (it is around 28C outside);
• Exploding air conditioning units (no one was hurt, just a few dramatic bangs):
• Vivid skyscapes over the city and sudden torrential downpours that threatened to drown out our proceedings once or twice last week; and
• Falling asleep in a large coach as it proceeded through the city streets.

Thanks from me to the marine team (you know who you are) and the OceanCare team both in Brazil and afar; and to all the people who kept us safe, fed and well during this intense seven days.

Read more

• CMS COP15 Delivers Landmark Protection for Seamounts and Many Migratory Marine Species
• Nature Knows No Borders: Governments Urged to Seize Landmark Opportunity to Protect Seamounts as Critical Habitat for Migratory Marine Species