Be the birds you wish to protect: Hundreds of activists dressed as birds, caribou, and trees costumes marched in COP15 host city Montreal to call for a strong agreement that would safeguard nature globally, Reuters reports. The aim of the protest is to ensure the outcomes of the conference would protect some 1 mn threatened species of flora and fauna, the newswire notes.

The sense of urgency: Animal populations have dropped nearly 70% on average since 1970, according to a World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) report released in October. The WWF had issued a dire warning about biodiversity loss, underscoring the calamitous side effects of deforestation, industrial pollution and extreme weather have had on 32k populations of 5.2k animal species they had scrutinized over the past 50 years.