Day: December 9, 2022

Populations of a vulnerable species of marine mammal, numerous species of abalone and a type of Caribbean coral are now threatened with extinction, an international conservation organization said Friday.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature announced the update during the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP15, conference in Montreal. The union’s hundreds of members include government agencies from around the world, and it’s one of the planet’s widest-reaching environmental networks.

The IUCN uses its Red List of Threatened Species to categorize animals approaching extinction. This year, the union is sounding the alarm about the dugong — a large and docile marine mammal that lives from the eastern coast of Africa to the western Pacific Ocean.

The dugong — a relative of the manatee — is vulnerable throughout its range, and now populations in East Africa have entered the red list as critically endangered, IUCN said in a statement. Populations in New Caledonia have entered the list as endangered, the group said.

The major threats to the animal are unintentional capture in fishing gear in East Africa and poaching in New Caledonia, IUCN said. It also suffers from boat collisions and loss of the seagrasses it eats, said Evan Trotzuk, who led the East Africa red list assessment.

“Strengthening community-led fisheries governance and expanding work opportunities beyond fishing are key in East Africa, where marine ecosystems are fundamental to people’s food security and livelihoods,” Trotzuk said.

The IUCN Red List includes more than 150,000 species. The list sometimes overlaps with the species listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, such as in the case of the North Atlantic right whale. More than 42,000 of the species on the red list are threatened with extinction, IUCN says.

IUCN uses several categories to describe an animal’s status, ranging from “least concern” to “critically endangered.” IUCN typically updates the red list two or three times a year. This week’s update includes more than 3,000 additions to the red list. Of those, 700 are threatened with extinction.

Jane Smart, head of IUCN’s Center for Science and Data, said it will take political will to save the jeopardized species, and the gravity of the new listings can serve as a clarion call.

“The news we often give you on this is often gloomy, a little bit depressing, but it sparks the action, which is good,” Smart said.

Pillar coral, which is found throughout the Caribbean, was moved from vulnerable to critically endangered in this week’s update. The coral is threatened by a tissue loss disease, and its population has shrunk by more than 80% across most of its range since 1990, IUCN said. The IUCN lists more than two dozen corals in the Atlantic Ocean as critically endangered.

Almost half the corals in the Atlantic are “at elevated risk of extinction due to climate change and other impacts,” said Beth Polidoro, an associate professor at Arizona State University and the red list coordinator for IUCN.

Unsustainable harvesting and poaching have emerged as threats to abalone, which are used as seafood, IUCN said. Twenty of the 54 abalone species in the world are threatened with extinction according to the red list’s first global assessment of the species.

Threats to the abalone are compounded by climate change, diseases and pollution, the organization said.

“This red list update brings to light new evidence of the multiple interacting threats to declining life in the sea,” said Jon Paul Rodríguez, chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission.

Source: Voice of America

As the global program for distributing COVID-19 vaccinations to low and middle-income countries is set to be phased out after next year, experts are warning of a messy transition to ensure countries with the lowest inoculation rates are protected against the coronavirus and new variants are prevented.

The sunsetting of COVAX was agreed to earlier this week in a meeting of the board of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization known as GAVI. The alliance is the driving force behind the international vaccine-sharing mechanism, along with the World Health Organization and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

GAVI said COVAX has enough capacity to continue through 2024. At that point, it plans to phase out the program to 37 developing countries while continuing to provide COVID vaccine doses and the funds to deliver them to 54 of the world’s poorest countries who still want them up to 2025, alongside other vaccines it provides.

“While COVAX continues to have in place plans for worst-case scenarios, the board agreed, in principle, to explore integrating future COVID-19 vaccinations into GAVI’s core programming,” it said in a statement.

Experts say demand for COVID vaccines has significantly dropped worldwide and GAVI shifting focus away from broad COVID vaccination coverage makes sense. However, they warn of a messy transition from the global emergency coordination mechanisms that were set up quickly at the start of the pandemic toward a longer-term COVID management initiative.

“There will be major questions coming from the transition, including how many low- and middle-income countries will continue to receive the financing and logistics support they need, to the impact on GAVI’s other immunization programs of integrating COVID-19 vaccination,” said Dr. Krishna Udayakumar, founding director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center.

“There’s lack of consensus among the various operating entities and no one person or organization ‘in charge’ to drive the process,” he told VOA. In addition, routine immunizations usually target children while most COVID-19 vaccinations are for adults, so there isn’t a clear alignment.

Udayakumar said that the COVID-19 pandemic will continue for some time, and future efforts should support continued vaccination of high-risk populations and preparedness for new variants and future pandemic threats.

U.S. efforts

The U.S. remains the world’s largest vaccine donor with a pledge of more than 1.2 billion doses delivered by end of 2022. A significant portion has not been delivered, partly due to reduced demand.

“As of this week, have donated over 670 million doses to 116 countries and economies,” a senior administration official told VOA.

In February the administration adjusted its pandemic response strategy to address hurdles faced by lower-income countries to vaccinate their citizens through Global Vax, a program launched late last year by USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Global VAX is billed as a whole-of-government effort to turn vaccines in vials into vaccinations in arms around the world. It includes bolstering cold chain supply and logistics, service delivery, vaccine confidence and demand, human resources, data and analytics, local planning, and vaccine safety and effectiveness.

The official said the U.S. will continue its efforts. “We are not done fighting COVID. Not at home, and not across the globe. Every country and every organization need to continue their work to fight this virus everywhere.”

However, questions remain on funding for U.S. plans to continue its pandemic response including preventing future threats. The administration is calling on Congress, which has until December 16 to pass a critical government funding bill that includes $10 billion to fight COVID at home.

The $10 billion has been pared down from the original $22.5 billion request submitted earlier this year which included $5 billion for its international response that has gone unfulfilled.

Source: Voice of America