Much of the attention being paid to conservation these days is about "system-level" strategies: combating climate change, emphasizing ecosystem services and folding virtually all activity under the auspices of serving humanity. Understandable, laudable and necessary, but not sufficient to achieve the ultimate goal of conserving biodiversity - preventing extinction of species.

Fortunately, there is a "system-level" strategy available - one that is well proven, scalable and directly addresses the extinction crisis: removing invasive species from islands. But restoring one island at a time is not adequate. Working together, nations with islands, island nations, NGOs, private funders, multi and bi-national agencies can and should launch a global, coordinated campaign to remove invasive vertebrates from islands with IUCN CR and EN species.

By targeting islands with the "most" biodiversity directly threatened by invasive vertebrates (we can do this because we now have global "threatened island biodiversity" database), sharing knowledge, using the latest, most innovative techniques, and coordinating and collaborating implementation efforts (as demonstrated this year with the sequencing of projects on Palmyra Atoll, in the Phoenix Island Protected Area, and on Henderson Island) the global conservation community can prevent the extinction of thousands of threatened species in the coming years. 

Best regards,

Bill Waldman
Executive Director
Island Conservation