How scientists can make the case for international cooperation in an age of diplomatic retrenchment

Scientists attribute the global decline of migratory species to a litany of human-driven threats, with habitat loss and degradation, overharvesting (including illegal killing), and climate change at the top of the list (Bairlein, 2016; Jaureguiberry et al., 2022; UNEP-WCMC, 2024). An additional serious threat—one particularly relevant to migratory species—is political isolationism. Isolationism occurs when states enact policies that avoid or terminate alliances with other countries and create political or economic barriers that impede transnational cooperation. After largely abandoning isolationism in the early to mid-20th century (e.g., Britain ended its so-called splendid isolation in 1902), many countries are moving in that direction once again. Recent elections in several European countries have produced strong showings for candidates hostile to international engagement. In the United States, the only United Nations member not to sign the Convention on Biological Diversity, isolationism appears to be central to the current administration's worldview. Today's increasing influence of political movements that shun international cooperation threatens to undo decades of progress for the conservation of migratory species. If our planet is to retain the unifying splendor of animal migrations, the role of border-crossing science and cooperation is critical. We know that many migratory species depend on international diplomacy. This was recognized early in conservation history with the 1902 European Convention for the Protection of Birds Useful to Agriculture, which was established after farmers and foresters in Germany raised concerns about declining insectivorous bird species that consumed agricultural pests (Bowman, 2014). On the other side of the globe, the 1911 North Pacific Fur Seal Treaty between Great Britain, the United States, Russia, and Japan established an effective system of transnational cooperation to sustain northern fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus) populations (Dorsey, 1998). A contemporary example of conservation achievements through international diplomacy is the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO). Established in 1984, this partnership—between Canada, Denmark, the European Union, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States—created a zone of protection for Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) that in most areas extends 12 nautical miles beyond the coast. NASCO successfully protects salmon in international waters from fishing by boats registered in non-NASCO nations. Salmon might spawn in one country's rivers and be harvested along another's coastline, but until NASCO, those nations would not have been involved in collaborative efforts to protect or even track them (VanderZwaag, 2022). Although warming waters due to climate change now present a substantial threat to North Atlantic salmon (Cripps et al., 2023), nations with an interest in conserving salmon are working together to make real gains through international cooperation (and not just accepting the species’ decline as part of a climate-altered future). These are only a few examples of international cooperation for migratory species. The 1979 Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) has generated a host of international collaborations to protect a wide range of migratory taxa. Specifically, the convention's machinery includes 7 international agreements, 19 memoranda of understanding (MOUs), and a host of special species initiatives, working groups, task forces, and other entities. Despite perpetually severe resource constraints, the convention's machinery carries on. Its 2024 Conference of the Parties in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, produced a flurry of formal decisions, updated documentation, and intended actions (CMS & UNEP, 2024) and is set to meet next year in Brazil. Nonetheless, the most recent international agreement under the CMS was signed 18 years ago in 2007 and the most recent MOU in 2010. The development of new treaties has not kept pace with the scale of migratory species’ declines (UNEP-WCMC, 2024; https://www.cms.int; timeline at https://www.earthweb.info/migration/agreements). In short, the current global shift toward isolationism indicates that the era of migratory species conservation through diplomacy is waning. Although criticisms remain about how well migratory species conservation is being implemented on the ground (Mattsson et al., 2022), international agreements like these are a crucial foundation. There is no quick fix to faltering global support for migratory species conservation—much less the vacuum generated by growing isolationist policies at a geopolitical scale. Yet the conservation science community can and should respond by promoting research that addresses the consequences of isolationist governance and proposes innovative solutions. As scientists, we have the responsibility and the power to make the case for border-crossing approaches to conservation based on critical examination. Our research team, EMIGRA (Especies Migratorias y Gobernanza Respetuosa de sus Ambientes) (https://emigra.arizona.edu), works across borders to develop new perspectives on migratory species governance. With researchers in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Austria, and Taiwan, EMIGRA's team consists of biologists, economists, landscape ecologists, social scientists, and wildlife management professionals. This mixture of experts reflects the international and collaborative approach essential to this work. Through case studies on monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus), Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis), and northern pintail ducks (Anas acuta), we have quantified the economic benefits received in one country as a result of wildlife conservation actions in others, providing evidence that wildlife conservation is something that governments need to pursue across borders, that there is a financial payoff for doing so, and that effective conservation necessitates inclusion of all rightsholders and stakeholders (López-Hoffman, Chester, & Merideth, 2017; López-Hoffman, Chester, Semmens, et al., 2017; López-Hoffman, Diffendorfer, et al., 2017c; Chester et al., 2022). We have also shown that people are willing to pay for conservation of northern pintails and Mexican free-tailed bats not only in their own country but also in neighboring North American countries (Haefele, Loomis, Lien, et al., 2018; Haefele, Loomis, Merideth, et al., 2018). Our research with local communities that carry out habitat protection on the ground indicates that rural, Indigenous, and local people not only want to share their knowledge but also wish to be better informed about conservation efforts in other, distant portions of a species’ range. We were only able to gain this important insight because we hired local researchers in each country to carry out the work, enhancing trust and continuing engagement with local communities. Earlier in our careers, government employees routinely crossed borders to discuss issues, attend meetings, conduct field work, and develop conservation plans. Wildlife managers and frontline biologists were frequent attendees at meetings of the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), the Trilateral (the United States, Mexico, and Canada) Committee for Wildlife and Ecosystem Conservation and Management, and many other efforts to conserve and manage migratory species. Today, government biologists tell us that it is harder and harder to get permission to attend conferences and meetings outside their jurisdiction. In recent years, senior agency officials have done most of the international travel, reducing interactions between frontline biologists, researchers, and managers. By diminishing regular cross-border exchanges, we are limiting our ability to study migratory species and to effectively inform their conservation. Isolationist policies that freeze or eliminate funding for international scientific endeavors are a rising concern. At a meeting in Mexico attended by EMIGRA members from around the world, one of our ranks, a retired U.S. federal employee, commented that if they were still in government service, they would have had a hard time getting funding approved for the trip. Our team has benefited from the U.S. National Science Foundation's (NSF) historical support for working across international borders to advance science, but there are strong indications that NSF funding for international research will be curtailed. Although fiscal constraints are named to justify agency budgets, these so-called constraints may really mean that governments have prioritized other sectors over international conservation. Beyond North America, financing for the protection of migratory species is paltry at the global level (UNEP-WCMC, 2024). In response to these challenges, it is clear that an effective approach to migratory species conservation depends fundamentally on information, ideas, and people crossing borders. In other words, not having all the players learning and working together constitutes, at best, an inefficient approach to conserving migratory species. And although scientists provide the research and results that inform decisions, it is agency personnel and authorities at state, provincial, Indigenous, and federal levels who translate that information into programs and policies that benefit migratory species. As opportunities for people in these roles to collaborate internationally decline, conservation suffers. The scientific community should also be informing and enhancing the international conservation of migratory species by pursuing and disseminating research that shows the economic benefits resulting from nations working together—and the losses that will occur if they fail to collaborate. For example, our team documented that the Mexican free-tailed bat provides US$12.4 million in pest control for cotton crops in the southwestern United States annually (Lopez-Hoffman, Diffendorfer, et al., 2017). Bats are saving crops by consuming insects and are simultaneously reducing the use of chemical pesticides. For U.S. agriculture to keep benefitting from this service, habitat conservation efforts by Mexican farmers and landowners must be supported. Similarly, we have shown that losses of wetlands in the Prairie Pothole Region of the United States and Canada and the concomitant reduction in waterfowl could result in the loss of US$489 million annually in economic expenditures by hunters and birders in the United States (Thogmartin et al., 2023). For these hunters and birders to keep benefitting from this service, habitat conservation efforts by both U.S. and Canadian farmers and landowners must be supported. Putting monetary values on the services and recreational opportunities that wildlife provides to human communities is a critical strategy to promote public support for cross-border conservation. All of us in the transboundary conservation arena should look at our workplaces and ask what practices encourage or discourage international cooperation. EMIGRA was designed to create partnerships across disciplines, institutions, and political borders; as such, it is hardly alone in the conservation arena. Many other groups—ranging from large nongovernmental organizations, such as Conservation International and World Wildlife Fund, to more focused groups, such as BirdLife International and Bat Conservation International—share the same approach. Their design includes informing strategic decisions through the use of technology, language, and more, and it is a model that is adaptable and replicable. More specifically, be they working within government agencies, academia, or the nonprofit sector, scientists can take a range of actions to promote international cooperation on migratory species conservation. For example, they can: become familiar with international journals and articles pertaining to focal migratory species or habitats that support migratory species; seek opportunities to collaborate with scientists and biodiversity managers across borders; ensure that scientific findings—one's own and the work of others—are more broadly disseminated across international borders; attend international meetings to meet with other researchers to facilitate cross-border collaboration; publish in popular media outlets (including videos) to build public support for migratory species; engage with community groups to understand their perspectives and account for these when studying conservation of migratory species; conduct research to document the barriers to migratory species conservation and to identify strategies to overcome those barriers; and become involved in one of the many existing international efforts to conserve migratory species (https://www.earthweb.info/migration/agreements). The evidence makes clear that isolationism is a threat to migratory wildlife and that international cooperation is critical to conserving migratory species. We researchers should be saying exactly this in our publications, in our conversations with colleagues and policy makers, and in our roles as educators. In almost any role a scientist might hold, we mentor younger colleagues. With these early career professionals, we have the same obligation to demonstrate how migratory wildlife faces multiple human-influenced threats, including isolationism. We can set an example by conducting cross-border research that provides objective evidence for the benefits of international cooperation and by advocating for the resources that make it possible. Migratory species must not be victims of the contemporary widespread penchant for dividing the world. They have a right to exist, and humanity has a vested interest in their continued existence. Migratory species delight us with beauty, keep ecosystems from tipping their balance toward animals we consider pests, and feed us. No matter what country we call home, we have to take all peaceful measures to challenge the forces of isolationism and counter their effects on conservation. Failing that, we leave our descendants economically depauperate and bereft of the splendor of animal migration. We thank the anonymous reviewers whose comments clarified and improved the manuscript.