The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation has made a major contribution to protecting endangered species by launching a programme in conjunction with Cambridge University’s Conservation Initiative and nine other conservation organisations.

The initiative was signed in the British Parliament on Wednesday evening in the presence of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Polar Regions.

Prince Albert said, in an address to 100 MPs, peers and academics: “The protection of biodiversity and, therefore, of endangered species is an issue to which I attach a great deal of importance.

“It is together that we will be able to save our biodiversity. This is a principle of effectiveness. But it is also a principle of humility; none of us can act alone.”

The Prince also referred to man’s “hubris and a tendency to subjugate nature” which has led “our society to follow a path of unsustainable development”.

World-renowned naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough told the same meeting that this major initiative would “break down silos and foster collaborations”. He added: “Conservation used to be about protecting certain species or specific places but we now know that there is an entire way of life that is at hazard.”

The Foundation’s commitment marks the 25th anniversary of the 1991 Madrid Protocol, which proclaimed the Arctic as a “natural reserve, devoted to peace and science”.