Above right: Jane Horgan at the International Desert Conservation Summit
CCB’s co-founder and Executive Director, Rebecca Klein, joined the world’s leaders of cheetah conservation for the inaugural Cheetah Summit, which took place in Addis Ababa between the 28th and 31st of January. Rebecca was one of 130 experts from Africa, the Middle East, India, Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States who attended the event, representing more than 80 institutions from communities, government and non-government organisations. The event’s theme “Conservation through collaboration: a call to action” highlighted the great need for conservationists to come together to enact change. The event culminated in the signing of the Addis Ababa Declaration for Global Cheetah Conservation which calls for the urgent need for action to protect cheetahs from extinction. The event, and the Declaration aims to further boost actions to protect the world’s remaining cheetahs before they run out of time.
In the same week, CCB’s Grants and Communication Coordinator, Jane Horgan, visited CCB’s long-time conservation partners and supporters, The Living Desert, in Palm Desert, California. The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens is not only one of the USA’s finest zoological facilities, but boast an impressive legacy of conservation initiatives, including hosting the International Desert Conservation Summit annually for the past three years. The Living Desert invited CCB to this year’s summit – the first in-person version of the Summit to date — to accept their prestigious Conservation Hero award. Joining desert conservationists from around the globe, the event, held from the 2nd – 4th February, celebrated the innovative approaches to desert conservation which centre around community engagement and involvement from the bottom-up. The event helped link conservationists working in the same challenging landscapes and although the species featured ranged from cheetahs and lions to rhinos, desert tortoises and vaquita, the community-based approaches to tackling the similar conservation issues experienced, allowed considerable knowledge exchange and ideas sharing between the conservationists. We are extremely thankful to The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens and their team for honouring CCB with their Conservation Hero award and we look forward to an exciting partnership with them and the conservationists who attended the summit.
Above right: Jane presenting at the International Desert Conservation Summit