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In response, WCS is advancing a science-based strategy to end commercial trade in live, wild birds and mammals for human consumption.

RIGHT/BELOW To prevent future outbreaks, WCS is working to stop the commercial trade in wildlife for human consumption, particularly of birds and mammals.

Health and animal care experts from WCS’s zoos and from our field sites have worked closely with law enforcement agencies to rehabilitate and release many confiscated animals back into the wild.

In Vietnam: In government prohibited the import of live wildlife, called for stronger enforcement of wildlife trafficking, and directed its ministries to review wildlife farming operations and penalties for wildlife consumption.

Strengthening the day-to-day team and training them to make sound decisions is very satisfying and has had a positive impact on our conservation objectives.

For the Thai people, the sanctuary is at the heart of the conservation movement.

This has improved the management of the protected area, which now supports a range of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

it is one of the best wildlife sanctuaries in Thailand and has become globally recognized amongst wildlife conservation communities as a standard for protected areas.

After I finished my bachelor’s degree in wildlife from Kasetsart University, I was a contract officer at a wildlife sanctuary near Huai Kha Khaeng.

I’ve now been doing conservation work for about years helped me improve my skills in real-world situations.

■ Advance global commitments: We will advance a strategy to win global commitments to measures designed to prevent the emergence and spread of new zoonotic-origin diseases, as well as a potential new pandemic prevention treaty or protocol, focusing on the United Nations, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and intergovernmental organizations such as the World Health Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health.

I manage anti-poaching patrols and monitor wildlife populations in Thailand’s Huai Kha Khaeng Sanctuary and promote conservation in local schools and communities.

Supporting Law Enforcement Agencies WCS has the largest global anti-wildlife trafficking presence of any conservation organization, with teams on the ground in nearly 30 countries.

The molecular program’s fascinating discoveries include: using environmental DNA (eDNA) to find endangered species; uncovering illegal wildlife trade activity; detecting wildlife disease risks; and conducting biodiversity surveys on Mount Everest.

We have developed mobile capacity to deploy our diagnostic tools around the globe, enabling scientists to detect wildlife disease outbreaks and inform conservation measures—including for chytrid fungus that threatens amphibians, and canine distemper virus, which is impacting Amur tigers.

in NYC birds and creates a diagnostic technique to screen for the virus; a joint effort by physicians and WCS veterinarians produces a new animal vaccine, developed with the samples WCS collected.

formally accepted by the G7 at June summit, recognizing at the highest political levels the essential connection between human, animal, and environmental health.

establishes a molecular laboratory to elevate animal care at WCS’s zoos and aquarium, and more quickly respond to global disease outbreaks.

At the heart of our One Health approach is community: we collaborate with diverse partners ranging from government and international health agencies, to villagers in remote forests, to restaurants in big cities.

Together with governments and local villages, we set up an early warning system for Ebola outbreaks focusing on remote areas with high biodiversity, which also have some of the poorest access to health resources.

Building a surveillance network of traditional hunters from animal carcasses to date—which WCS diagnostic analysis confirmed posed no risk of Ebola spread.

We will expand rollout of SMART for health, creating a robust worldwide network of wildlife disease sentinels collecting and sharing information to stop the consumption of illegally caught wild meat—and prevent future pandemics.

SMART for health is accessible via smartphones in even extremely remote areas, and supports tracking of animal behaviors, mortality events, and photo uploads.

WCS’s zoos and aquarium serve as vast oases at the heart of a metropolis where nature can be hard to come by.

WCS sets the standard worldwide for best-in-class animal care, innovative exhibits, and zoo-based conservation through our powerful combination of five urban parks— the Bronx Zoo, New York Aquarium, Central Park Zoo, Queens Zoo, and Prospect Park Zoo—and conservation work in 60 countries across the globe.

While our parks were closed for several months during the pandemic, hundreds of our dedicated staff continued caring for our more than ways to help people connect with nature virtually.

CONSERVATION IMPACT Caring for Rescued Animals at WCS Parks WCS’s Bronx Zoo and our other wildlife parks are recognized as global leaders in breeding endangered species and educating millions of visitors each year about wildlife and conservation.

By providing these animals with the long-term care they need, we are also inspiring zoo and aquarium visitors to learn more about the risks these species face in the wild and to support urgently needed conservation action.

Now a full-time WCS Youth Development Coordinator, Olivia inspires her fellow Bronx youth to become involved in conservation, and helps shape WCS’s educational programming.

Everyone has a role to play in saving wildlife and wild places, and forging a connection to nature is the first step.

But today, people are becoming more disconnected from the natural world, and children risk being cut off from nature during a formative time in their development.

Our four zoos and aquarium in New York City make science and conservation accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds, reaching some people each year through our immersive exhibits and rich interpretive materials that draw content from our field-based work in 60 countries.

Throughout the COVID-during the five-month closure of our parks—WCS stayed on mission and continued to provide children, families, and schools with a unique gateway to nature, pivoting to provide rich science and conservation content virtually.

Once we re-opened in July where people could get out and experience nature and wildlife—sorely needed in a difficult time.

We learned a lot from reimagining how to connect people to nature during the pandemic—and in doing so, expanded and strengthened our reach.

Bringing Nature to You: WCS Virtual Zoo The live cams at our parks brought an array of wildlife right into people’s homes, offices, and schools.

Imagining Yourself as a Conservation Hero Our Conservation Heroes website showcased the diverse role models at WCS—from New York Citybased Zoo Veterinarian Susie Bartlett to Marysa Sibarani, a Forest Animal Researcher in Indonesia— with the goal of inspiring more young people to envision themselves as future leaders.

Through our Conservation Careers curriculum, young people explored various jobs in conservation through role play and quizzes.

To reach more people and engage them in conservation, we will innovate, expand, and strengthen our conservation science programming, building forward-looking, hybrid models that incorporate both inperson and digital experiences.

I truly appreciated all the people who took the time to answer all our questions and share their love of these animals and the conservation of these amazing creatures.” — BRONX ZOO VISITOR Wildlife Camp Online—A National Model for Digital Learning Our from 30 states and 6 countries, and became a national model for innovative digital learning.

From visits with animal keepers in our city parks to conversations with staff experts as far away as Mongolia, the team created a one-of-a-kind summer enrichment experience.

At the New York Aquarium, WCS connects visitors with the diverse ocean ecosystem in their own backyard, highlighting the types of field research our scientists are doing right offshore in the waters of New York.

Connecting People to Nature at WCS’s Zoos and Aquarium Telling Stories of Recovery on The Zoo Our flagship Bronx Zoo and four other parks welcome 4 million guests each year.

But millions more across the US and around the world—who might not otherwise get a chance to visit our parks—gain a window into WCS’s work through Animal Planet’s award-winning docuseries THE ZOO.

With the fifth season premiering in October staff provide care for the 17,000 animals at our parks, while helping advance the conservation of species in the wild.

I want to give visitors the kind of clarifying moment I had as a kid, when I first held a big green iguana named Marv.

Burning fossil fuels harms our animals through climate change but also causes high rates of asthma in my Queens neighborhood.

Vast wilderness areas may seem far removed from our daily lives, yet the survival of life on Earth depends on preserving the Congo basin’s tropical forests, the Arctic and boreal forests, the coral-studded reefs of Melanesia, and many other intact places around the world on land and sea.

rally the global community around the ambitious goal of protecting 2030—prioritizing intact places with the greatest biodiversity and climate change resilience, and turning commitments into action.

In WCS’s four decades of leadership across coastal Patagonia, we have helped the governments of Argentina and Chile create numerous protected areas to conserve this stronghold for seabirds, elephant seals, whales, dolphins, and sharks.

Strongholds are our planet’s remaining intact forests, coral reefs, savannas, mangroves, peatlands, and other wilderness areas with the greatest ecological integrity, size and diversity of species populations, and resilience to climate change.

We aim to conserve more than extraordinary strongholds for wildlife—to sustain life-giving ecosystems and conserve half of the planet’s biodiversity.

In the late canoed hundreds of miles through the Republic of Congo’s Ndoki-Likouala Stronghold to survey its wildlife and forest habitat.

In Congolese government establish Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park to protect one of the most biologically intact forest ecosystems on the African continent: more than 4,000 square kilometers of contiguous lowland rainforest, a vital stronghold for forest elephants, gorillas, and chimpanzees.

Our overarching strategy is to continue protecting intact ecosystems within, and beyond, protected areas.

WCS also supported the provision of food and transport of community members to local markets in the absence of any other transportation, providing an alternative to bushmeat consumption, which saw a fourfold increase during lockdown.

Activating Responsible Ecotourism Opportunities WCS has launched a four-year program with the Congolese Government, in partnership with the Congo Conservation Company and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), to create the first professionally managed ecotourism operation, which could contribute an estimated operating budget over the next 10 years.

Advancing Science-led Conservation Using conservation criminology, WCS and partners released a study in the journal Conservation Science and Practice about the wild meat trade, finding that restaurants in urban areas in Central Africa play a key role in whether protected wildlife winds up on the menu.

In Sumatra, the Gunung Leuser National Park and its surrounding forests represent one of the last great intact wilderness areas on Earth, so the significance of this difficult to overstate.

Leuser’s old-growth, biodiversity-rich forests and peatlands remain remarkably healthy and intact, acting as nature’s lungs and helping to provide oxygen to the world.

We need to act quickly to protect this biodiversity powerhouse and its essential ecosystem services that locally benefit more than million people, particularly 862 villages around the national park.

This is a pivotal moment for the Gunung Leuser National Park and its surrounding forest area.

■ Define new and enhanced strategies to conserve biodiversity and support communities around the national park by rolling out an “Integrated Prevention Model.” ■ Reduce poaching and forest habitat loss across this vast landscape by a further percent over the next five years.

monitor tigers and their prey in order to measure population trends and determine if adjustments are needed to the collaborative conservation strategy.

For Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF) to protect the Gunung Leuser National Park and its buffer forest in the south and southeast part of this second largest protected area in Sumatra.

WCS leads conservation programs in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and Solomon Islands—countries which are part of the Melanesia region in the southwest Pacific.

A unique and essential biodiversity stronghold, it provides nearly livelihoods, and health benefits.

A new WCS-led study has shown that the Coral Triangle is surprisingly resistant to climate changerelated heat spikes, making it a sanctuary for coral reefs that play a central role in marine ecosystems and human livelihoods.

But the Coral Triangle can only survive over the long term if we can reduce other human pressures, such as overfishing and pollution.

Across our ocean strongholds, WCS is working to help secure new government commitments to protect by 2030; our work in Melanesia is a core part of this effort.

In Papua New Guinea, WCS is working directly with women and other community members in the eastern part of the country to establish a new coastal MPA (square kilometers) and a new offshore MPA (5,000 square kilometers), both of which will be critical for community livelihoods as well as conservation of key fish and ray species.

THAILAND Ocean ecosystems support a vast range of marine species as well as the livelihoods, nutrition, and well-being of hundreds of millions of people.

But coral reefs, mangroves, seagrasses, and other marine habitats face unprecedented threats from overfishing, pollution, unsustainable resource extraction, and warming waters.

One of our key strategies is to support nations in creating Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), which have proven successful in conserving ocean strongholds.

The WCS Marine Protected Area Fund has helped bolster protection of biodiversity-rich waters across the globe.

Since the time of our ancestors, we have lived within nature.

We live by hunting, fishing, harvesting wild fruits from healthy forests; we settle alongside lakes and streams because they provide for our daily lives.

As the only woman guide in Bolivia’s Amazonian region, I hope WCS will continue to support the development of our women into leaders defending the forests and heritage we’ve fought for, particularly in the face of new threats like gold mining that can damage our rivers and fisheries.

By combining our traditions and knowledge with the skills and reach of WCS, we have been able to improve our well-being and create work opportunities for our young people within the forest community, so they don’t have to leave.

As a member of the Indigenous Tacana People, I work with WCS to protect our lands and raise public awareness of their rich biodiversity.

This unrivaled biodiversity haven is an important carbon sink that fortifies our natural defenses against climate change.

around us, with profound impacts on human well-being and the wildlife and wild places that WCS protects.

The climate crisis is the consequence of our broken relationship with nature—but nature could also be a powerful ally in the fight against climate change, if we choose to tap its immense potential.

Intact forests are particularly critical because they are massive carbon sinks for the planet.

WCS research has revealed that the benefits of saving intact tropical forests are six times higher than current methods assume.

In this section, we share highlights from WCS’s drive to stop the loss of highly intact forests by sink and ensuring that the 510 gigatonnes of CO2 these forests store stay out of the atmosphere.

CONSERVATION IMPACT Advancing Climate Science to Protect Coral Reefs WCS is using robust science to evaluate the impacts of climate change on coastal ecosystems and forests.

This technology, developed by WCS and partners, enables conservationists to assess climate impacts on coral reefs and transform data into action.

Protecting Intact Forests as Carbon Sinks To assess the health of forests, WCS developed a first-ever global metric to better understand such values as how much carbon a forest stores and its importance to local communities.

WCS has used this Forest Integrity Index to ascertain which forests are essential to conserve—such as those within the ultradiverse Amazon and Congo basins.

We are protecting intact forests and other high-integrity ecosystems to cost effectively and swiftly address the climate crisis.

loss of approximately 22,000 ha of forest, an area four times the size of Manhattan.

Helping Wildlife and Communities Adapt Around the world, WCS is helping people, ecosystems, and species adapt to the impacts of climate change.

as seabirds and walruses adapt to climate impacts as sea levels rise.

And in places like Rwanda, WCS is leveraging support from the Green Climate Fund to reduce or limit greenhouse gas emissions while improving community resilience to climate impacts.

Strengthening Global Policy WCS is working to ensure that nature-based climate solutions are at the forefront of global decision-making.

In fall are playing a key role in important opportunities to elevate and advance nature-based solutions, such as at the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow and the UN Convention of Biological Diversity in Kunming, China.

These meetings will set the agenda for curbing climate change as well as restoring nature—and with input of WCS’s cutting-edge science, countries have now agreed to prioritize ecosystem integrity in setting goals and targets.

Engaging People on Climate at WCS Parks WCS is strengthening content on climate impacts and solutions for visitors to our New York zoos and aquarium, including through inpark signage and interpretation, and in our education programs.

At the New York Aquarium’s new Spineless exhibit, for example, we call out easy ways that our guests can help reduce pollution, destructive fishing, and climate change impacts—such as eating a more plant-based diet, choosing sustainable seafood options, and keeping trash out of storm drains.