Every year, billions of animals make journeys that cross national borders — birds following ancient flyways from their Arctic breeding grounds to their African winter habitats, sharks navigating open oceans, turtles returning to beaches they left decades earlier. These journeys connect ecosystems across continents, but they also expose animals to threats that no single country can address alone. The treaty designed to protect them — the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, or CMS — is the only global agreement dedicated exclusively to species that travel across national boundaries.
From March 23 to 29, 2026, the 15th Conference of the Parties to that treaty — known as CMS COP15 — brought together 132 countries and the European Union in Campo Grande, in the Mato Grosso do Sul state of Brazil, a city that sits at the gateway to the Pantanal, the world's largest tropical wetland and home to hundreds of migratory species. The backdrop was intentional: negotiators were surrounded by the very ecosystems they were there to protect.
The outcomes were substantial. Forty new species were added to the treaty's protection lists, including the cheetah, striped hyena, snowy owl, giant otter, and great and scalloped hammerhead sharks. BirdLife International — the global partnership of bird conservation organisations — called the results "a major breakthrough for migratory birds," noting that delegates agreed a landmark new marine flyway framework, formally recognised six global marine flyways for seabirds, and took stronger action on threats including illegal hunting, bycatch (the accidental capture of non-target species in fishing nets), and poorly planned infrastructure.
The urgency behind the agreement was underscored by a new interim report presented at the summit, which found that 49% of the migratory species populations protected under the treaty are in decline, and 24% face extinction. The same report offered cause for cautious optimism: seven species, including the saiga antelope and Mediterranean monk seal, have improved in conservation status as a direct result of previous treaty commitments.
The CMS Secretary, Amy Fraenkel, summarised the mood at the close of negotiations: the species themselves, she noted, are not waiting for the next meeting.