Nizar Hani,  the general manager of the Shouf Biosphere Reserve, the largest of Lebanon’s nature reserves, was awarded the Order of the Star of Italy in December 2021.
This distinction, Italy’s second-highest civilian honor, is given by order of the Italian president to Italians or foreigners who have acquired special merit in the promotion of friendly relations and cooperation between the republic and other countries.

Tom is widely credited with coming up with the term “biodiversity”, derived from “biological diversity”, in the early 1980s, and certainly became one of its major proponents over the years. At the same time, he was one of the earliest scientists to really push the importance of climate change when it was nowhere near the level of popularity and visibility that it has today, and, most importantly, to link biodiversity and climate change, especially through the importance of tropical forests like Amazonia.

IUCN is deeply saddened by the passing of IUCN Patron of Nature Professor Richard Leakey – an eminent paleoanthropologist and conservationist celebrated for his fossil discoveries and his efforts to preserve the wildlife of the African continent.

The 2nd Annual International Ranger Award will recognise the remarkable work of rangers in protected areas around the world. These awards are intended to improve rangers’ capabilities, raise awareness about the critical role they play in conservation efforts, and help share rangers’ unique stories and perspectives.

Nominations are open until 31 January 2022.

Stretching across Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary and Serbia, the world’s first 5-country biosphere reserve, which has been declared by UNESCO in September 2021 covers 700 km of the Mura, Drava and Danube rivers and a total area of almost 1 million hectares in the so-called ‘Amazon of Europe’ – making it the largest riverine protected area in Europe.

A conversation with Yan Xie, Associate Research Professor of the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Consultant on conservation technical issues in the Changbai Mountain National Nature Reserve.

A degraded forest of Caribbean pine will be restored as a conservation plot for traditional and medicinal hardwood species that are becoming rare. This is the primary objective of a project in the Pacific islands that will also constitute a "school forest" where the population, and particularly young people, will be made aware of the local flora and its uses.

This project implemented by the Saint-François City Hall was presented at the WCC BEST pavilion in Marseille. More details (in French), including a recording of the presentation held on 7 September 2021, can be found below.

This report and its accompanying video together give an overview on how BIOPAMA, together with its donors, implementing partners, stakeholders, and beneficiaries, contributed to the results of the IUCN World Conservation Congress between 3 and 11 September 2021.

With BIOPAMA support, government stakeholders in Tonga have been equipped with hands-on, practical knowledge of finding relevant up-to-date data, information resources, and technical guidance to assist protected and conserved area management. They are also able to use spatial data and GIS software to produce and export basic protected area maps with standard features.

This project had two main aims – to increase the protection of the Lésio-Louna reserve and to improve the quality of the eco-tourism product developed to help support local communities. In this final report, the grantees are pleased to confirm these aims have been achieved and that the benefits from this project will continue long into the future.

L’outil IMET et l’approche de coaching ont renforcé la dynamique communautaire de gestion des Aires Marines Protégées du Sénégal.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Programme on African Protected Areas and Conservation (IUCN-Papaco) is running a new session of its online courses (MOOCs) on protected areas management and governance. These courses are online and free.

The next session runs from 17 January to 12 June 2022, with seven MOOCs to choose from: protected area management, ecological monitoring, law enforcement, apecies conservation, valorisation of PA resources & sustainable tourism, new technologies, and marine protected areas.

These MOOCs are designed for Conservation professionals (park managers, conservation agents, rangers, researchers etc.), students, professionals wishing to develop new skills or change careers, and to anyone who is interested in nature conservation.

SAGE is a stakeholder-led tool for assessing governance and equity of a protected or conserved area. Communities from two Wildlife Management Areas in Northern Tanzania use the SAGE to explore their governance challenges. Learn more through this video.

In Mauritius, the main goal of Tech4Nature is to demonstrate, through the appropriate use of technology and digital solutions, active restoration of coral reefs, prevention of conflicting situations with the locals through sensitization and a fully scientifically managed area, which will be measured by benchmarked performance against the IUCN Green List Standard for protected and conserved areas.

The Hainan gibbon (Nomascus hainanus), the world’s rarest primate and the most endangered among all gibbon species in the world, rated as Critically Endangered by IUCN. With less than 10 individuals remaining in the 1980s, the population has risen to 35 in 2021. The Tech4Nature project in China is working with HINP to collect and analyze acoustic monitoring data of Hainan gibbons through new technologies such as acoustic monitoring, data transmission, cloud storage and AI, which will provide a new approach to the conservation of Hainan gibbon.

Le Parc National du Banco (3 438 Ha) se situe au cœur d’Abidjan, capitale économique de la Côte d’Ivoire; le mettant sous forte pression de l'urbanisation. L’Office Ivoirien des Parcs et Réserves a commencé par l’évaluation de la qualité de la gestion du parc avec l’outil Integrated Management Effectiveness Tool (IMET). Cette évaluation a été le point de départ de nombreux projets écotouristiques et l’adoption d’une culture d’évaluation dans la gestion du parc.

Natural World Heritage sites represent the very best of nature, covering huge areas of land, freshwater and sea. They are part of the solution to addressing the global environmental crisis. But the threats they face keep on escalating, with climate change now assessed as top threat by the IUCN World Heritage Outlook. Discover what the planet’s most iconic natural sites tell us about climate change in this multimedia feature.

A new report lists seven broad areas in the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram mountain ranges where new natural World Heritage sites could be found. Many of these areas cross borders or complement adjacent World Heritage-listed sites in neighbouring countries. The report was produced by IUCN, Wild Heritage, and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), with support from the National Geographic Society.

A new report, Tabe’a III, is the first to examine the impact of conflict in World Heritage sites in the Arab states, as well as that of extreme weather conditions. It also looks at the connections between nature and culture in the management of these sites. The report is part of a cooperative programme by IUCN and the Arab Regional Centre for World Heritage (ARC-WH), and focuses on the period from 2015 to 2019.

The Asian Elephant Transport Working Group (AsETWG) has launched a groundbreaking publication titled “Protecting Asian Elephants from Linear Transport Infrastructure.” The result of collaboration among infrastructure ecologists and elephant biologists, contents include:

- Information about the projected expansion of linear transport infrastructure (LTI) in range countries;
- The research and evidence of impacts that such growth is having on Asian elephants;
- A focus on guidelines, policies, laws, practices, and emerging technologies for reducing Asian-elephant transport conflicts;
- Seven wildlife crossing case studies covering Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, and Malaysia; and
- Recommendations for advancing efforts, policies, and research.

To support capacity building on PPAs, the IUCN WCPA Specialist Group on Privately Protected Areas and Nature Stewardship have developed a set of training materials. This is part of a partnerships between BfN’s International Academy for Nature Conservation and the IUCN WCPA’s Specialist Group on Privately Protected Areas and Nature Stewardship.

The November issue of PARKS commences with an Editorial from the new Chair and Deputy Chair of WCPA on priorities for the Commission. This is followed by an Editorial Essay that considers what should count towards more ambitious protected and conserved area targets within the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. Papers in the November issue consider using monitoring to assess conservation and patrol effectiveness, integrating protected areas with surrounding traditional landscapes, waste management in private reserves, causes of ranger casualties in Sri Lanka, reporting economic benefits of protected areas, marine protection in Denmark, and an outline of the World Park project.

In support of the Green List of Protected and Conserved Areas programme in Namibia, The Namibian Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT), IUCN, and the IUCN WCPA are inviting Expressions of Interest in becoming an EAGL (Expert Assessment Group for the Green List) member for the Namibian Green List jurisdiction. Further details are provided in the attached Call. 

Please note that the deadline to submit expressions of interest has been extended to 24 January 2022.

The public is invited to submit proposals for the 2nd Asia Parks Congress, to be held in Sabah, Malaysia in May 2022. The deadline is Friday, 28 January 2022. All applications will be reviewed by a panel of experts. The organisers will aim to let applicants know the outcome of the review process in March 2022. Please note that the acceptance of a proposal does not imply sponsorship; all participants are expected to cover their own costs to attend the Congress.

Since its establishment in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it. IUCN’s new legacy gift options will help ensure IUCN keeps playing this essential role for years to come.

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