IUCN staff news - June 2021

Dear colleagues,

We are one Secretariat with a shared purpose: to create a just world that values and conserves nature. We are also a global Secretariat; a worldwide community whose work covers different regions, countries, and time zones. In this past year with all its new challenges, it has sometimes been too easy to feel disconnected from our colleagues. This is why I am so pleased to introduce IUCN Connect.

IUCN Connect is our new staff newsletter. It will be the place to share news and events from throughout our community, and tools to help us with our work. I encourage you all to read it carefully. Alongside the newsletter, I look forward to welcoming you to the first of our new, townhall-style events soon. Together, these will be part of a new focused effort, led by the Global Communications Unit, to strengthen our internal communications.

I wish you well wherever you are reading this, and hope that the newsletter will remind us all of our connections to colleagues around the world. Unions, like ours, are only as strong as these connections.

Best regards,

Bruno
Dr Bruno Oberle, Director General, IUCN

Life at IUCN

Help promote IUCN Congress: a “major milestone for biodiversity”

The IUCN Congress is an important milestone for the conservation community, and drives much of our work. Please remember to help promote the Congress.

Resources are available including the IUCN Congress Toolkit and the Social Media Toolkit. These provide presentations, templates, invitations, videos, logos, posters, and ready-to-use social media posts. Let’s get the word out for IUCN’s main event, which French President Emmanuel Macron calls a “major milestone for biodiversity”. If you might be able to help at Congress in-person, please contact HRMG for more information.

We will restore

On 5 June, colleagues from across the Secretariat pledged their support for World Environment Day and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Together, we will do our part to restore the planet and our relationship with it.

Watch the video

Emerging Leaders and High Potential Programmes

The Emerging Leaders (ELP) and High Potential (HPP) programmes started in 2019 to enhance participants’ leadership capability and support them to become effective leaders in their fields. Congratulations to the following colleagues who have successfully completed the programmes this month by presenting their personal projects to IUCN leadership: Carole Martinez (ELP), Jake Brunner (ELP), James Hardcastle (ELP), Jonathan Davies (ELP), Stephen Edwards (ELP), Kevin Smith (ELP), Swati Hingorani (HPP), Roxana Bucioaca (HPP), Adriana Vidal (HPP), Carla Danelutti (HPP), Rebecca Welling (HPP), Sandeep Gaur (HPP), Pak Chuen-Arisuvarakul (HPP).

Consistent look and feel of IUCN

Having a consistent look and feel of IUCN products is an important part of strengthening IUCN’s brand and its credibility. You have likely noticed that IUCN-branded templates are now the default when you open PowerPoint and you also have access to a variety of IUCN-branded backgrounds for virtual meetings within Teams. Please make use of these elements as well as the various IUCN templates, logos, brand guidelines and other materials available on the Union portal. And if you are presenting about Congress or want to include Congress in your communications, the Congress Toolkit has a variety of assets for you to use.

Connecting with...

John P. Owino works as Programme Officer at IUCN and is based in the Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO) in Nairobi, Kenya.

John joined IUCN in December 2000. For the past 20 years he has worked to promote the equitable and sustainable management of natural resources, in particular water, across the region. IUCN Connect spoke to John to learn more about his job, his two decades at IUCN, and life outside of work.

Save these dates in your diary

Welcome to

Neida Chow Méndez who joins as Asesor técnico territorial Programa de Biodiversidad Enlazando el Paisaje Centroamericano in the Regional Office for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.

Zonia Lopez who joins as Asistente Administrativo de Proyecto in the Honduras Country Office.

Saskia Chacon who joins as Asistente de Comunicaciones in the Regional Office for South America.

Il Young Oh who joins the Strategic Partnerships Unit as IUCN-Republic of Korea Senior Government Manager in Headquarters.

Coralie Tsirony who joins the Office of the Legal Adviser as Junior Professional in Headquarters.

Reina Barahona who joins as Auxiliar de Servicios Generales in the Honduras Country Office.

Julie Griffin who joins as Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Coordinator in Headquarters.

Wouter Plouvier who joins as Mediterranean Programme Assistant in the Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation.

Clement Chazot who joins the Global Marine and Polar Programme as Marine Programme Officer in Headquarters.

Antonin Vergez who joins the Economic Knowledge Unit as Senior Expert for Natural Resources Economics in Headquarters.

Félicité Chabi-Gonni ép. Vodounhessi who joins as Coordinateur Régional du projet Opportunités au Sahel in the Burkina Faso Programme Office.

Joseline Díaz who joins as Asistente Administrativo/a in the Guatemala Country Office.

Matthew Emslie-Smith who joins the World Heritage Programme as Temporary Monitoring Officer in the United Kingdom Office.

Susanna Gionfra who joins as European Programme Officer Nature Based Solutions in the European Regional Office.

Coradino Macave who joins as Finance Assistant in the Mozambique Country Office.

Abdeta Robi who joins as Programme Officer in the Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office.

Yiyun Sun who joins as Programme Officer in the China Country Office.

Adoum Abakar Tahir who joins as Assistant Administratif et Financier in the Chad Project Office.

IUCN in the media

In June, IUCN featured in the media over 7,000 times and in 148 countries. This included an interview with IUCN’s Director General on Arirang TV (Korea) and several articles on our recommendations to the World Heritage Committee, including in The Guardian and ABC News Australia.

Other highlights were a Reuters article reporting links between climate and biodiversity citing our expert on protected areas; a story in The Guardian on IUCN’s efforts to map environmental DNA citing the Head of our Freshwater Biodiversity Unit; and stories in The Washington Post, CBC and Deutsche Welle on IUCN’s work to recover illegally trafficked cacti in Italy. There were articles about IUCN’s Conflict & Conservation report citing IUCN’s Chief Scientist in French and German, and IUCN’s upcoming Congress featured in high-profile outlets such as Le Monde, La Libération and Le Point.

What happened in June at IUCN

World Heritage ‘in danger’

IUCN advises the UNESCO World Heritage Committee through our World Heritage Programme. IUCN’s most recent recommendations include adding four natural sites to the List of World Heritage in Danger.

Voices for peace and conservation

Efforts to address environmental challenges are often divorced from work to resolve conflicts and promote peace, despite links between the two. Voices for Peace and Conservation is a new podcast series launched by IUCN and partners that shows how conservation and peacebuilding can work side-by-side.

Listen here

Award winning

The IUCN WCPA International Ranger Awards seek to recognise those who have gone above-and-beyond the call of duty to protect wildlife and support local communities. Sathish Sundaram of the Tamil Nadu Forest Department was chosen by the expert panel for his work in the Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park.

Hear from the winner

News to share with colleagues?

Starting a project, celebrating a success, or trying a different way of working? We want to hear from you. Please send details of your news and upcoming events to: connect@iucn.org