Animals get a seat at the biodiversity table: a new guide launched at COP17

Governments now have a practical playbook for protecting wildlife and human health together. A guide called Animals for Biodiversity and Health was launched today at COP17, the UN biodiversity conference in Yerevan, Armenia. Built by the World Federation for Animals — a UN-accredited federation of more than 70 animal-welfare organisations — with the Born Free Foundation and contributions from the World Organisation for Animal Health, University College London and Brazil's Chico Mendes Institute, it sets out concrete policy options: tightly regulating high-risk wildlife capture and trade, protecting city tree canopies, creating wildlife corridors and phasing out the riskiest forms of animal confinement. The point is simple: the same choices that keep animals healthy also slow biodiversity loss, disease spillover and drug resistance.

SDG 15 · Life on land — Mechanism: institutional program