Global Initiative on Ungulate Migration (GIUM)

Global Initiative on Ungulate Migration (GIUM)

May 23rd and 24th
at IMERA

About GIUM

Most of the world’s large terrestrial mammals are ungulates, and many of them migrate seasonally to sustain their massive herds on landscapes around the planet. The abundance that migration supports in turn connects systems and promotes the resilience of the ecosystems that sustain subsistence hunting, rural economies, and provides the primary prey base for almost all the world's top carnivores.

Today, the slow and steady spread of our human footprint represents a common threat to ungulate migrations across the globe. The wild landscapes that migrations require are increasingly fragmented and degraded by roads, fences, agriculture, energy development, and human settlements. Migrations are being lost for species as diverse as bighorn sheep, elk, bison, pronghorn, springbok, Thompson’s gazelle, hartebeest, scimitar-horned oryx, zebra, and wildebeest.

New advances in migration science now make it possible to identify threats to corridors and pinpoint conservation opportunities. In North America and Europe, corridor maps are being used to target fences for modification or removal, site road-crossing structures, adjust energy development footprints, and focus conservation efforts on working lands. Such initiatives however are constrained by technological hurdles and in need of support.

The Global Initiative on Ungulate Migration was created in 2020. The main aim of the initiative is to work collaboratively to: 1) create a Global Atlas of Ungulate Migration (an inventory) using tracking data and expert knowledge; and 2) stimulate research on drivers, mechanisms, threats and conservation solutions common to ungulate migration worldwide. Initiative participants include global experts representing the world's major terrestrial regions and most if not all of its longest migrations (e.g., Serengeti wildebeest, arctic caribou, Mongolian saiga, white-eared kob, African elephants, among many others). We seek to spark conservation efforts worldwide by sharing and discussing new, ongoing, and proven approaches to maintain migration corridors across large landscapes.

A public screening and conference at the heart of Marseille!

On May 24, starting 2pm, IMERA will host a back to back public acreening of awareness films about ungulate migration produced under the GIUM umbrella. This event will be followed by a public conference and discussions with the public.

This event is organized by Francesca Cagnacci, Senior researcher in Animal Ecology at Fondazione Edmund Mach, Research and Innovation Centre (FEM/CRI), Trento, Italy - Holder of the IMERA/IRD chair on sustainable development, visit her page here.

Ps: the information and media on this page are extracted from the official GIUM webpage here: https://www.cms.int/en/gium