The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) commemorates the 50th anniversary of Earth Day today with a series of messages showing resilience, hope, and steadfastness against the three crises facing our planet today: climate change, biodiversity extinction, and global pandemics:

WCS Conservationists on Five Continents Reach for Hope as the Three Crises Tear Apart our Planetary Home

With heavy hearts but with awe-inspiring spirit, more than 30 WCS staff from 5 continents recorded messages of hope for today’s 50th anniversary of Earth Day.

Our team in New York working in our four zoos and the aquarium, and our global team working in field sites in nearly 60 countries have dedicated their lives to protecting nature. And even as these 3 crises seem impossible to beat back, our WCS staff won’t have anything to do with giving up the fight or giving in to despair.

From Africa, North America, South America, Asia and Europe – hear, feel and see their hope in these video messages.

Seeing is Believing: The Earth’s Climate Crisis

Today, WCS launched a new web feature called “Seeing is Believing” – a virtual photo album showing the impacts of climate change that WCS staff and friends are seeing on the ground right now.

The climate crisis is happening now. On a global scale. Impacting all life on Earth. Humans, fauna, and flora. The world is experiencing a zoonotic pandemic. Species are dying out. Floods and fires are threatening the Earth’s landscapes. Intense storms and sea-level rise are wiping away coastlines. Communities are being forced to relocate. Wildlife must adapt or find different habitats. These new extremes are changing how all species function, including us. These are not distant problems, which is why viable solutions are more critical than ever.

WCS is addressing the climate crisis—along with the biodiversity and extinction crisis and the zoonotic pandemic crisis. Conserving wildlife and the world's wild places will mean facing and adapting to a changing climate and planet. Because of this, WCS is actively working to implement solutions that will allow wildlife and human communities to persist.

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