Endangered wildlife knows no borders. The Center works with grassroots conservation and cultural groups in other countries to secure a future for diverse species and habitats around the world. We work to protect global biodiversity where U.S. and international laws can be applied, holding the U.S. government accountable for illegal actions threatening imperiled species around the globe.

ABOUT OUR INTERNATIONAL WORK

The Center protects species as distinct from each other as the Okinawa dugong, Puerto Rico rock frog and three-wattled bellbird in places as far-flung as New Zealand and Russia. We take action under treaties like the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and the North American Free Trade Agreement, as well as under U.S. law, to ensure that American government activities and projects abroad don’t hurt endangered species in other countries. We also work through the United Nations process to establish safeguards for international wildlands and the animals and plants that depend on them. The scope of our international program is rapidly expanding.

HOW WE DO IT

• Scientific research
• Coalition building with local allies
• Petitions and legal action under U.S. and international law
• Global policy advocacy
• Creative media

MILESTONES

Our International Program:

• Won the first-ever international lawsuit under the U.S. National Historic Preservation Act, challenging construction of an American military base in Okinawa, Japan, that would damage important remaining habitat of the Okinawa dugong.

• In 2012 challenged the United States Export-Import Bank’s nearly $5 billion in funding for two natural gas facilities inside Australia’s Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area, a case that will address whether the U.S. Endangered Species Act applies to all U.S.-funded projects abroad.

• Used NAFTA to secure an international investigation into the health of the San Pedro River in Mexico and Arizona and again to stop construction of a natural gas facility on the U.S.-Mexico border that could have devastated the Xantus’s murrelet and other rare seabirds. Initiated a similar process to seek endangered status for the polar bear under Canadian law and to strengthen regulation of Canadian aquaculture that harms wild salmon.

• In 2012 petitioned for Pelly sanctions against Canada’s unsustainable polar bear hunting that violates the Polar Bear Agreement and adds to the mounting threat of climate change.

•  Through our 2008 legal petition impelled the U.S. government to stop topped fish imports that don’t meet U.S. marine mammal protection standards, including those protecting endangered whales and porpoises.

• In 2012 worked to secure a proposal from the U.S. government to add protections for the polar bear and four species of turtles under Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

• In 2006 filed a lawsuit winning Endangered Species Act protection for five vanishing birds from Latin America, settling a separate lawsuit in 2009 compelling final listings for six birds and proposed listings for 25 birds from around the world.

• In 2006 led a dozen conservation organizations from the United States and Canada in petitioning the World Heritage Committee to add Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park to the List of World Heritage sites as “in danger” due to impacts from climate change.

• Secured the adoption by the Global Convention on Biological Diversity of a historic “Global Strategy for Plant Conservation.”

• Published a groundbreaking, comprehensive report on the vertebrate species of the Bering Sea, now translated and used as a teaching aid in Russia.

• Along with more than 30 other organizations in the United States, Panama, and Costa Rica, petitioned the World Heritage Committee to ascertain the level of threats faced by La Amistad International Park, a World Heritage site shared by Panama and Costa Rica.