Conservation Investments Offered at IUCN Congress

Conservation Investments Offered at IUCN Congress





October 2008  - "Absolutely everyone now agrees 
that we can't postpone decisive action if we are to avoid major 
disruptions in all spheres of human and natural activities," said Julia 
Marton-Lefevre, director general of the International Union for 
Conservation of Nature. "Business as usual is simply not an option." 

Marton-Lefevre was addressing more than 8,000 specialists from the 
conservation community, governments, nongovernmental organizations, 
academia, private sector, women and indigenous groups who have gathered in 
Barcelona for the IUCN's World Conservation Congress, held once every four 
years. 
"In the last four days the call to protect the planet has been heard from 
both government leaders and the NGO community," says Valli Moosa, 
president of IUCN. "Environmental concerns are now at the top of the 
decision-makers priority list." 
While the world is entangled in the turmoil of a financial crisis, at the 
World Conservation Congress civil society, environmentalists, governments 
and business have been defining a different way forward. 
The 10 day conference opened Sunday and even during these difficult 
financial times, it has been the occasion of announcements of substantial 
investments in conservation funding. 
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is committing $50 
million to help conservation groups working in eight biodiversity hotspots 
preserve biodiversity in the face of climate change. 
The eight places all have high concentrations of species, many of which 
are found nowhere else and all are under extreme threat. They include the 
Lower Mekong, Eastern Himalayas, and Melanesia in Asia and the Pacific; 
Madagascar and the Albertine Rift in Africa; and the Insular Caribbean and 
southern and northern Andes in Latin America. 
"The scale and urgency of the climate change problem demands that the 
international conservation community step up its efforts," said MacArthur 
President Jonathan Fanton told conference participants in Barcelona. "It 
is clear that for conservation to succeed in the face of climate change 
there must be shared science, coordinated action, and the capacity for 
rapid response, backed up with increased financial resources." 
The $33 million Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund was announced 
Thursday. It was established by Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohamed 
bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who "hopes to make a genuine contribution to species 
conservation worldwide" when the fund's operations commence by January 
2009. 
The focus of this fund will be global and eligibility for grants will 
extend to all plant and animal species conservation efforts, without 
discrimination on the basis of region or selected species. 
Announcing the fund Thursday in Barcelona, Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak, 
managing director of the Emirates Wildlife Society, said, "It is not just 
species, but species conservation as a whole, that is endangered. And by 
that, I don't mean the threats facing individual species and habitats, but 
the predicament facing species conservation as a discipline, and its 
declining status as an environmental priority." 
"Too often, species conservation is expected to benefit from the trickle 
down effect of our efforts to address the world's bigger picture 
environmental issues, and is not being addressed in its own right," said 
Mubarak. 

A new project was announced today that will encourage businesses that have 
built their brands based on threatened species to invest more in the 
preservation of their natural habitats. The Save Your Logo campaign 
intends to attract private sector involvement and build broad public 
support to sustain biodiversity. 
The Global Environment Facility will invest $5 million to launch the pilot 
phase of the project and will work with the World Bank and IUCN, and in 
cooperation with the Belgian NGO Noe Institute, to leverage conservation 
co-financing from the private sector. 
"Many corporations have profited dearly from the hundreds of animals and 
plants they have built their brands around. Given the biodiversity crisis 
facing the planet, it is probably time to give back some of it so that 
their logos won't disappear forever," said Monique Barbut, chief executive 
and chairperson of the GEF. 
An agreement on principles guiding forest management in view of climate 
change was announced by a group of 250 that includes representatives of 
governments, forestry companies, trade unions, environmental and social 
groups, international organizations, forest owners, indigenous peoples and 
forest-community groups. 
The Forests Dialogue's Initiative on Forests and Climate Change specifies 
that sustainable forest management that reduces deforestation and 
degradation and that actively supports the livelihoods of millions of 
forest-dependent communities must now be one of the world's highest 
priorities. The group said in a statement, "This is because forests and 
forest products have the unique ability to reduce greenhouse gas 
emissions, capture carbon, and lessen peoples' vulnerability to climate 
change." 
Stewart Maginnis, head of the IUCN Forest Conservation Program, said the 
group "not only agreed on the pivotal role that forests can play in 
mitigating climate change but also mapped out a consensus action plan on 
concrete next steps. We now ask the world to work with us in putting these 
guiding principles into action." 
Other far-reaching agreements were concluded this week. Agreement on key 
principles on high-seas governance were achieved and new working 
relationships with fishermen's associations and conservation groups were 
established. 
With initiatives such as The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, 
which presents a "comprehensive and compelling economic case for the 
conservation of biodiversity," according to its author Pavan Sukhdev, a 
senior figure in Deutsche Bank, collaboration between the conservation and 
business worlds is taking on new strength. 
"What we have seen is a defining moment in bringing different perspectives 
together and, in some cases, developing consensus that will have an 
important and long-lasting impact," says Bill Jackson, deputy director 
general of IUCN. 
"We heard about new facts, mostly negative, and about new science and 
solutions. I think we are setting a different and much more productive way 
to deal with fundamental conservation issues," Jackson said. 
The World Conservation Congress now enters its second phase, where IUCN's 
members will elect a new president and Council and vote on the resolutions 
which will guide IUCN's work for the coming four years. 
Based in Gland, near Geneva, in Switzerland, the IUCN is the world's 
oldest and largest global environmental network. It is a democratic 
membership union with more than 1,000 government and NGO member 
organizations, and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists and experts in some 
160 countries. 
IUCN's work is supported by over 1,000 professional staff in 60 offices 
and hundreds of partners in public, NGO and private sectors around the 
world.





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