Dear readers,

It is with enormous sadness that IUCN and the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) announce the sudden passing of Kathy MacKinnon, a stalwart of protected areas and of conservation globally.

40+ years working for conservation and protected areas, Kathy was also the Chair of WCPA from 2015 to 2021and was awarded the Midori Prize for Biodiversity 2018.

Her career and dedication to conservation has left behind a remarkable legacy that will keep inspring us today and future generations of conservationists.  

On 15 March, the Vjosa River in Albania, one of the last wild rivers of Europe is declared a National Park by the Albanian Government, becoming the first Wild River National Park in Europe.

This is the result of a unique collaboration between the Albanian Government, local and international experts, environmental NGOs from the Save the Blue Heart of Europe campaign, IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), and outdoor clothing company Patagonia.

Explore more media coverage here

Viet Nam is home to many large protection and production landscapes outside of the protected areas estate, including areas of high biodiversity value. Here, there are enormous opportunities to recognise, support and report other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) offering perhaps Viet Nam’s best opportunity to meet the 30x30 target.

Following the adoption of the Global Biodiversity Framework at CBD COP 15, Central and West African countries are identifying and characterizing Other Effective Conservation Measures (OECMs), especially community conservation areas.

Click the link below to watch the recording of the 26 April 2023 webinar. 

Habitat loss and soil erosion are of major conservation concern in the Falkland Islands. Originally caused by deliberate burning by early sealers and subsequently by stock over-grazing in an environment without native land mammals and climate change.

In 2020, through a grant to Falklands Conservation to address coastal peatland erosion on Motley Island, BEST 2.0+ recognised the need to reverse this loss and to build community capacity for habitat restoration activities.

Les Anges Gardiens de la Nature are a recipient of a Small Technical Grant from the BIOPAMA Programme. In this video testimonial, learn about the activities of the project and their benefits to the communities and wildlife of the WAP-PONASI Complex.

Read about the project

In March 2023, a regional workshop was held in Bali, Indonesia to explore the development of a marine conservation and protected areas (MCPA) capacity development programme for the Coral Triangle region, Asia Pacific, based on the IUCN Green List Framework.

The workshop was co-hosted by the Coral Triangle Center (CTC), a regional training hub for the six nations that form the coral triangle countries — Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste — which together host the most marine biodiverse ecosystems on the planet. 

The Joint Research Centre through the BIOPAMA program launched a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) focused on ‘Assessing tourism services in protected areas: value chain and economic analyses’, designed and edited by the senior expert Dr Anna Spenceley. 

The course is based on Opportunity Study Guidelines produced by The International Trade Centre's, and Visitors Count! published by UNESCO and the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation BfN, and written by members of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) Tourism and Protected Areas Specialist Group.

Five Central Asian countries have jointly confirmed their interest to mitigate the risk of zoonosis emergence in the region by enhancing overall landscape resilience through the One Health approach. The commitments were shared on the closing day of a three day regional workshop in Tashkent, co-hosted by the Ministry of Natural Resources of Uzbekistan and IUCN.

After the success of the publication of the Tech4Nature – Solution in Focus publication, this webinar is organised to keep the conversation going! 

Listen first hand from the solution providers about their technology enabled conservation outcomes and the story behind it! 

Click here to access the recording for the AM session

Click here to access the recording for the PM session

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF) has awarded the International Union for the Conservation of Nature a grant to support the implementation of the Green List Programme until 2030, with the objective of implementing the new Global Biodiversity Framework Targets and the 30x30 ambitions to secure biodiversity and climate benefits and catalysing the scale-up of the IUCN Green List in all dimensions.

North Luangwa National Park is one of Zambia’s pristine wilderness landscapes and home to Zambia’s only Black Rhino population. This 4636Km2 park has rich and thriving wildlife populations and a spectacular untouched wilderness.

The North Luangwa Conservation Programme (NLCP), a 37-year partnership between Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS) and the Zambian Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW), successfully met the rigorous requirements, as defined by the IUCN Green List for Protected and Conserved Areas, to achieve fair and effective conservation measures and thus were awarded their Green List certification by IUCN.

Designating an area as legally protected is a key step toward creating a safe haven for threatened habitats and wildlife. But it needs more than that. Protected areas must also be effectively managed so that countries can deliver on their national and global biodiversity targets. And at a time of growing scrutiny over human rights and nature conservation, they must be fairly governed and managed.

But how can you tell if a protected area is effective? How can we help improve all types of protected and conserved areas to deliver successful outcomes for people and nature?

PANORAMA is an initiative to promote and document inspiring and replicable solutions from across the globe. To help represent PANORAMA and directly connect with communities implementing those solutions, we are proud to introduce the Second Cohort of the PANORAMA Ambassadors!

The title of PANORAMA Ambassador is a status awarded to practitioners, policy influencers, and academics who fully support the PANORAMA initiative and who are particularly well-connected within their community. Being a PANORAMA Ambassador is a volunteer role. They are linked to the PANORAMA network and group of partners. Ambassadors form a network to connect, learn, share ideas, discuss, debate and work together.

As the pandemic hit Perú, the country closed as many others around the world. Communities like Santa Rosa in the buffer zone of the Rio Abiseo National Park were left alone. Clarita’s small business got hit and the family economy collapsed. They were left to fend for themselves, and Clarita experienced the most painful moment of her life as her husband became victim of the virus and died.

Her journey, as a single mother in the midst of a pandemic begun and as communities and countries started to open their borders again, she was faced with the dilemma of how to care for her son and maintain the household economy afloat.

IUCN, and the German Government through GIZ, joined forces with our implementing partner Planeterra to build the “Sustainable Tourism and Protected Areas in a Post-COVID World” project in Perú and Vietnam, responding to the impacts of the pandemic. As part of the implementing activities, communities in the Rio Abiseo National Park and the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve created Community Action Plans, prioritizing and developing sustainable community tourism products realized through the Cash for Work mechanism.

Her story enables us to understand the pillars of a community-based project in a more organic and human way.

In closing the project “Sustainable Tourism and Protected Areas in a Post-COVID World”, two indigenous communities were visited in Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, Shintuya and Queros, while the leaders of the other three communities participating in the project, Puerto Azul, Boca Isiriwe and Baranco Chico, were invited to join the closing meeting in Queros community.

The aim of the project was to engage local indigenous peoples from these communities in restoring and developing new sustainable community-based tourism action plans and itineraries, especially favouring women’s participation and benefit. Through a dedicated ‘cash for work’ scheme, local people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic were able to earn a supplementary income by, for example, restoring trails in Queros, restoring community centres where visitors are welcomed (Puerto Azul, Boca Isiriwe), tree planting (Baranco Chico) or by enhancing sanitation and waste management infrastructure in Shintuya. 126 community members directly benefited (53 men, 73 women) and 240 people indirectly benefited from these activities.

In September 2022 several partners organized a training to strengthen disease risk reduction and One Health coordination capacity for protected area managers in Vietnam. This training, co-organised by IUCN secretariat and IUCN Vietnam, Save Vietnam’s Wildlife (SVW), Conservation Medicine and EcoHealth Alliance focused on IUCN guidelines for disease prevention, detection, response and recovery in protected and conserved areas (PCAs) and One Health best practice guidance for sustainable and healthy tourism in Vietnam. The training was led by experts from Conservation Medicine, an NGO based in Malaysia and a leader in applied wildlife health and disease surveillance, risk assessment, and biosafety processes.

As part of the Sustainable Tourism and Protected Areas in a Post-COVID World project, IUCN and Planeterra worked with the communities of Río Abiseo National Park and Amarakaeri Communal Reserve in Peru to develop community-based tourism enterprises and connect them with the travel market.

One of the best ways to achieve that is through familiarisation trips, also known as FAM Trips, where tour operators can learn first-hand about the communities. That is why organizing a FAM Trip was one of the main initiatives of the project.

Last October, representatives from different Peruvian tour operators gathered in the Río Abiseo National Park and Amarakaeri Communal Reserve to discover all the wonderful experiences the communities have to offer.

Freshwater conservation was in the focus at the CBD COP15 Biodiversity Summit in Montreal, when IUCN hosted a side event on “Conserving the Vjosa-Aoos River”, with participation of Mr. Ryan Gellert, CEO Patagonia, H.E. Dr Mirela Kumbaro, Minister of Tourism and Environment, Albania, H.E. Mr. Georgios Amyras, Deputy Minister of the Hellenic Ministry of Environment and Energy, IUCN’s Europe and North America Directors, among others.

The event promoted and recognized new partnerships, collaboration and support to turn the design and designation of conservation areas into continuous and successful results for people and nature. It demonstrated real tangible action to secure the integrity of the whole Vjosa-Aoos River in Albania and Greece and new commitments were made to protect this unique and valuable freshwater system, including a pledge by Greek Deputy Environment Minister Georgios Amyras for full protection of Aoos River.

A vision, roadmap and feasibility study for the protection of the Vjosa River and its free-flowing tributaries under the IUCN Category II management classification, have been presented to the Albanian Government. During the last six months, a team of 30 Albanian and international experts, together with representatives of IUCN, Patagonia and EcoAlbania, conducted in-depths analysis on geomorphology, ecology, boundaries, planning and management, sustainable financing, legislation, eco-tourism and social and environmental impact assessments for the successful declaration of Europe’s first Wild River National Park. The study, currently out for one month of public consultation, sets out the boundaries for Phase I of the National Park declaration, expected this spring, as well as a vision for its expansion in its second phase.

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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