IUCN 2021 World Conservation Congress Report
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature ( IUCN ) wrapped up their quadrennial World Conservation Congress this week; a year later than originally intended due to the COVID-19 crisis. Over the course of the 9-day conference IUCN members voted on 39 Motions, elected new leadership and approved the next IUCN programme for 2021-2024, which will be called Nature 2030: Union in Action. During that time too, four separate summits took place, the Indigenous Peoples’ Summit, the Global Youth Summit, the CEO Summit and the Local Action Summit, all aiming to inspire and invigorate the various groups IUCN works with.
EcoGo team members right-to-left Jehoshua, Jessica, and Pamela
One of our group members attended the Global Youth Summit, while two others attended the CEO Summit. Both were inspiring and insightful.
We from EcoGo came to the conference supporting three motions, Motion 003 Establishing a Climate Change Commission [or Establishing a Global IUCN Climate Crisis Action Platform] from the Hawai’i Conservation Alliance Foundation and Our Drowning Voices, Motion 101, Setting area-based conservation targets based on evidence of what nature and people need to thrive, sponsored by The WILD Foundation and Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, and Motion 130, Strengthening sustainable tourism’s role in biodiversity conservation and community resilience, proposed by WCPA’s (a commission within IUCN) Tourism and Protected Areas Specialist Group. Both passed, as you can see here: https://www.iucncongress2020.org/event/members-assembly/vote-results.
Motion 130 covers creating Sustainable Tourism as a topic and integrating nature-based tourism events and activities into future Congresses and IUCN conferences, calls for the creation of an inter-commission working group focused on sustainable tourism’s role in biodiversity conservation and community resilience and urges other commissions to include sustainable tourism in their future efforts. We congratulate WCPA and all co-sponsors.
Motion 101 was a long time in the making, and has passed thanks to the tireless efforts of Vance Martin and his team. As climate change drives the absolute necessity for action, these are the sort of guidelines we will need to rely on to protect nature – key to our survival.
Motion 003 was highly debated. The proposers wanted a Climate Change Commission created, but in revision by the IUCN review body, language was changed to have a task force, rather than a commission created. You can read Our Drowning Voices response to that change here. That language changed under further revision to “Establishing a Global IUCN Climate Crisis Action Platform” or creating a Commission. The motion passed in the 8th and final debate and vote of the conference, though we don’t yet know what form it will take.
IUCN also agreed upon a new manifesto for the next four-year period, with a focus on COVID-19 recovery and halting biodiversity loss.
