FOUR PAWS & the Climate Film Festival (CFF) joined forces to present a film screening and discussion focused on our relationships with the natural world in honor of World Endangered Species Month. ​Featuring three films on animals of the land, air, and sea, this program spotlighted the urgent link between wildlife conservation and climate. Climate change, animal trafficking, and habitat loss threaten species on every continent, but scientists, activists, and local communities are fighting back—saving habitats, disrupting illegal trade, and rebuilding the ecosystems that keep both animals and our climate in balance. ​Following the screening, a panel of experts and filmmakers delved into the film’s themes and their broader implications for international wildlife and conservation at the nexus of climate change. Panelists included: Vanessa Amoroso (Head of Wild Animals in Trade, FOUR PAWS); Aaron Gekoski (Presenter & Co-Producer, DETHRONED); ​Anisa Peters (Producer, WILD HOPE: Coral Comeback); and Angelo Soto-Centeno (Assistant Curator of Mammalogy, American Museum of Natural History).

About the films:

​DETHRONED (2024, dir. Will Foster-Grundy): A photojournalist’s quest to uncover humanity’s destructive relationship with big cats, from poaching to commodification, in a world on the brink of losing them.

WILD HOPE: Coral Comeback (2024, an HHMI Tangled Bank Studios and Red Rock Films Production): ​Corals around the world are threatened by rising ocean temperatures that risk bleaching reefs and decimating entire marine ecosystems, but researchers in Hawaii are helping these marine architects beat the heat. With their help, coral reefs may have a better chance to survive—both now, and in the future.

​Batsies (2023, dir. Liz Unger): Batsies is a short, experimental documentary that examines two women’s tender relationship with an animal that’s quintessentially feared and loathed: the bat.

Photos courtesy of FOUR PAWS