On February 12-17, the 14th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS COP14) will be held in Samarkand.

The CMS Convention was signed in 1979 in Bonn, Germany and came into force in 1983. There are 133 countries that are members of the Convention. Turkmenistan acceded to the Convention in August 2020 (at the same time acceding to the Agreement on the Conservation of Afro-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds).

The Convention brings together range states through which migratory animals pass and provides the legal basis for internationally agreed conservation measures throughout the migratory range.

CMS COP14 is a high-level international conference that will bring together governments, scientists and stakeholders to agree on a strategy for the conservation of migratory species and their habitats.

The previous, 13th Conference was held in 2020 in India. Previously, such an event has not been held in the CIS countries and the current forum will be the first event in this series in Central Asia and the Commonwealth.

In August of this year, the Government of Uzbekistan and the CMS Secretariat approved the official slogan and logo of the event, which depicts a winged snow leopard, decorated with a pattern reminiscent of the famous azure tiles of Central Asian monuments.

The UN conference will be held under the theme "Nature Knows No Borders", which, along with the event's logo, is a reminder that the journeys of migratory species defy political boundaries and that their survival depends on international cooperation and cross-border efforts on biodiversity conservation.

The event is expected to be attended by Executive Director of the UN Environment Program Inger Andersen, Director General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature Gretel Aguilar, Chairman and CEO of the Global Environment Facility Carlos Rodriguez, the Ministers of the Environment of the countries participating in the convention, the heads of the secretariats of international environmental agreements and leading scientific circles, Dunyo news agency reports.

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