Rev. Dr. Alesana Pala’amo of the Congregational Christian Church of Samoa offers a compelling call to action in this short video.

The video highlights the protection of the Manumea, or Tooth-billed Pigeon (Didunculus strigirostris)—the national bird of Samoa, a unique large pigeon, the only member of its genus, and globally endangered with only c.200 surviving in the wild!

The video thus challenges Samoans, who are overwhelmingly Christian, with the biblical call to care for creation: “We are caretakers of creation … We have been entrusted with this task of saving his [God’s] environment.” 

Watch the video here: youtube.com/watch?v=cl8G_JQdAzE&t=3s.

Thumbnail image credit: CloudSurfer (CC BY-SA)

Members of our creation care network are used to reading reports like this, but the reminders still come as a shock (as they ought to – may we never grow numb to the suffering of God’s creation). This is the latest from the IUCN via EcoWatch and the Guardian:

The largest study ever conducted on the extinction risk of reptiles on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species warned that 21 percent of all reptile species worldwide are threatened with extinction, which could have a “devastating” effect on the planet’s ecosystems, The Guardian reported.

Led by NatureServe, the IUCN and Conservation International, the study compared the conservation needs of 10,196 reptile species with those of birds, mammals and amphibians, according to a press release by NatureServe. The specific subjects of the study were crocodiles, turtles, snakes, lizards and tuatara, a reptile native to New Zealand that is the only living representative belonging to a lineage that evolved about 200 to 250 million years ago, during the Triassic period.

Read more here.