In response to the escalating nature and climate crises, including the urgent need for greater conservation finance and inclusive governance, IUCN has announced the creation of four new Centres that will help deliver on the global goals for sustainable development and its own ambitious programme, Nature 2030.

We are pleased to announce the launch of the Calls for Proposals for the latest BIOPAMA Action Component grants.

The BIOPAMA Action Component provides funding opportunities to address protected and conserved areas, sustainable use of biodiversity, natural resources priorities for actions on the ground in African, Caribbean and the Pacific countries.

Current Calls for Proposals include:

• Medium Grants – Eastern and Southern Africa
• Medium Grants – Western and Central Africa
• Medium Grants – Pacific

Additional Calls for Proposals will open soon, including a Small Technical Grant for Eastern and Southern Africa and a Small Technical Grant for the Caribbean.

IUCN, together with partners, look forward to implementing this new Fund to help countries achieve more holistic policymaking by creating further evidence of the links between biodiversity, climate and health, and support decision makers and relevant actors to take measures to prevent future pandemics.

In alignment with a global movement to conserve the world's biodiversity, the government of the U.S. state of California is launching 30x30 California, which aims to conserve 30 percent of the state's land and coastal waters by 2030.

The social objectives of 30x30 California include connecting nature to park-poor communities, both urban and rural; increasing access points and trails within existing natural areas; incorporating programming, education, and outreach that is accessible and representative of California’s cultural diversity; and protecting California Native American tribal homelands for cultural practice.

The Vital Sites Pavilion at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Marseille highlighted how fair and effective protected and conserved areas are a foundation for addressing biodiversity and development challenges, and are essential for human health and well-being.

With a new dedicated playlist on YouTube, updated regularly, you can now relive your favourite pavilion events in high-definition.

Our community extends its congratulations to Aissa Traore who has received the Johann Koss Humanitarian Award in honour of her work to inspire girls and women, and give a voice to those that need it.

The award recognises Aissa’s leadership of the Femme Plurielle initiative for girls’ education in Mali’s villages, and Play Days where families bring children together to play while parents learn about issues affecting their children’s future. One hundred girls in Mali’s capital, Bamako, have benefited from these life-changing and empowering lessons.

Wetlands play a fundamental role in human societies. Since ancient times, humankind has been interconnected with these habitats, serving as a source of water, food, fuel, and more.

In the past few centuries, wetland exploitation has increased and this disturbance has affected ecological processes in many wetlands around the world, leading to habitat degradation.

Over the past decades, both the recognition of the importance of wetlands and efforts to protect them have improved and a new era of wetlands protection has started. Learn more, with this multimedia feature.

A conversation with Siddharth Edake, Frédéric Bachet is a former Director of the Parc Marin de la Côte Bleue (Pathfinder Award finalist in the 'Biodiversity Conservation' category) and member of the IUCN French Committee’s Commission on Protected Areas.

BEST is very happy to announce that one of our grantees from the Pacific, the Association PALA DALIK, has just inaugurated its travelling exhibition about coral reefs “PROXI-RECIFS se jette à l’eau” on 23 February in Noumea, the capital city of New Caledonia.

BEST est très heureux d’annoncer que l’un de nos porteurs du Pacifique, l’Association PALA DALIK, vient d’inaugurer son exposition itinérante sur les récifs coralliens « PROXI-RECIFS se jette à l’eau » le 23 février à Nouméa, la capitale de la Nouvelle-Calédonie.

This World Wildlife Day, how is conservation technology used in protected areas to improve decision-making and management effectiveness?

Learn more through this multimedia feature, including several BIOPAMA-funded projects, such as:

• Papua New Guinea: 'Mapping and Monitoring the Torricelli Mountain Range Conservation Area (TMRCA), carried out by Tenkile Conservation Alliance (TCA);
• Jamaica: 'Improving management effectiveness – Blue & John Crow Mountains National Park and World Heritage Site' by the Jamaica Conservation and Development Trust and Blue Mountain National Park; and
• Republic of Congo: 'Improving the Protection & Management of Lésio-Louna Reserve through increased monitoring against illegal activities combined with development of existing eco-tourism', implemented by The Aspinall Foundation.

Established in 1988, The Jamaica Conservation and Development Trust (JCDT) is a non-governmental organization and charity with a mandate to conserve Jamaica’s natural environment.

The activities of the JCDT centre on the 41,198 hectares (101, 313 acres) of rain and cloud forest that make up the Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park including it's core, Preservation Zone which covers 26,251 hectares (65,000 acres) and is inscribed as a World Heritage Site. In addition JCDT's work focuses on the approximately 28,494 hectares of land around the protected area called the Community Buffer Zone.

Wildlife poisoning through intentional or unintentional misuse of agrochemicals continues to threaten wildlife species in Zambia and Southern Africa at large, including vultures scavenging on poisoned carcasses. Studies show that human exposure to these types of poison potentially has catastrophic impacts on human health.

With BIOPAMA support, BirdWatch Zambia (BWZ), together with the Endangered Wildlife Trust, carried out a project training rangers, investigations officers, wildlife police officers and community scouts to detect and understand wildlife poisoning.

The resumed sessions of the Convention on Biological Diversity's twenty-fourth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA 24), the third meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI 3) and the third meeting of the Open-ended Working Group on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (WG2020-3), originally scheduled for 12-28 January 2022 are now planned to take place on 14-29 March 2022, at the International Conference Center Geneva in Geneva, Switzerland.

Read BIOPAMA's Information Documents around these discussions in English and French.

A new MOOC Conservation session has started! These online courses are free, and open to all, especially to protected area practitioners in Africa

Une nouvelle session MOOC Conservation est lancée! Ces formations en ligne sont gratuites, ouvertes à tous, en particulier aux acteurs des aires protégées en Afrique.

Through funding received from the European Union and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States, Tenkile Conservation Alliance (TCA) through the BIOPAMA grant facility has been able to provide access to modern field equipment to over fifty village communities in Papua New Guinea’s remote East and West Sepik regions in support of their work to conserve the Critically Endangered Tenkile and Weimang tree kangaroos.

In December 2021, the Working Group on ICCAs Indonesia (WGII) organised a general assembly and a social event to commemorate its 10-year anniversary and strengthen the membership and the initial spirit of its foundation.

Reflections and thoughts from members and founders of WGII and from the communities who have most closely worked with WGII, as well as beautiful songs and traditional dances helped reinvigorate the purpose and critical role of WGII to advocate for Indigenous peoples’ rights and their conservation wisdom for equitable and effective governance of natural resources in Indonesia.

We are collecting examples of best practices and case studies to document and promote in a dedicated ‘Tech4Nature – Solutions in Focus’ publication. This publication is meant to inspire and present a portfolio of successful examples of how technology can help conserve nature.

The Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU), which is regenerating a vast swathe of north-west Saudi Arabia as a leading global destination for cultural and natural heritage, has been officially announced as a government member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The addition of “One Health Interventions” to the PANORAMA - Solutions for a Healthy Planet Species portal has created a space for highlighting wildlife health and broader One Health success stories and best practices.

The portal promotes solutions that address the wide scope of conservation and sustainable development challenges, breaking them down into building blocks that can be adapted and replicated across topics and geographies.

We would greatly appreciate you sharing any implementations you have worked on, or heard about, that fit under the large One Health, wildlife health, or zoonotic disease umbrella.

Protected and conserved areas contribute to wider aims of sustainable development. A recent Vital Sites webinar introduced several studies that have looked into the evidence base for the contribution of these sites to the Sustainable Development Goals - including the publication "Solutions for Development Challenges", which is based on insights from over 100 PANORAMA solution examples.

The project ‘Sustainable Tourism and Protected Areas in a Post-COVID World’ aims to develop a more crisis resilient and sustainable tourism landscape and in the spirit of “building back better”, improve the ecological and social aspects of tourism in and around protected and conserved areas.

In Peru, we are supporting pandemic recovery by strengthening resilience of sustainable community-based tourism in Peruvian protected areas and indigenous co-managed communal reserves, including Amarakaeri Communal Reserve and Río Abiseo National Park. 

The Rapid Response Facility (RRF) provides emergency support to natural World Heritage sites in times of crisis. With a target to decide on applications in just eight working days, the RRF is one of the world’s fastest crisis funds. Eligibility extends to agencies responsible for site management; NGOs, government agencies and the private sector. Grants of up to US$40,000 are available, and applications can be submitted at any time

Canadians will now be able to get a new kind of prescription for nature thanks to a collaboration between Parks Canada and the British Columbia (BC) Parks Foundation supporting PaRx, Canada’s first nature-based prescription program. An initiative of the BC Parks Foundation, PaRx is driven by health-care professionals who want to improve their patients’ health by connecting them to nature.

Through this collaboration, health care providers who are participants in PaRx will be able to prescribe the Parks Canada Adult Discovery Pass to patients who live close to a national park, national historic site, or national marine conservation area and who can benefit from accessing nature in these locations.

Through initiatives like these, and efforts by the IUCN WCPA Health and Wellbeing Specialist Group and with the support of a growing number of park agencies and #NatureForAll partners globally, the Healthy Parks Healthy People movement is growing! 

To learn more about the PaRx program and the BC Parks Foundation, visit www.parkprescriptions.ca and www.bcparksfoundation.ca/

The Global Code of Conduct for Rangers has been developed following a global, iterative consultation process with rangers, ranger associations, ranger employers, national and regional governments, human rights organisations and other relevant stakeholders. IRF and URSA would now like to share this resource and encourage widespread adoption.

The Global Code of Conduct – (available in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Bahasa Malay, Urdu, Assamese)

The Global Code of Conduct Guidelines for Adoption – (currently available in English)

Videos on the Global Code of Conduct (available in English, Spanish, French)

Under the Convention on Biological Diversity, conserved areas will be implemented as 'Other effective area-based conservation measures' (OECMs), following the CBD decision and IUCN guidance.

This webinar looks at the opportunities and challenges in implementing the OECMs idea and the need to speak a common language on what they mean and how they are implemented.

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.

Read more