a review of the impact of iucn resolutions on ... · introduction ... effective means of...

A Review of the Impact of IUCNResolutions on InternationalConservation Efforts

Introduction .........................................................................................................................3

1. Setting the Global Conservation Agenda ........................................................................4

2. Supporting the Development of International Conservation Law .....................................6

3. Identifying Emerging Issues in Conservation ...................................................................8

4. Mobilizing Specific Actions on Species and Protected Areas ........................................10

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Previous IUCN Congresses and Members’ Assemblies

2008Barcelona, SpainDr. Ashok Khosla (India), elected President

1972Banff, CanadaDr. Donald Kuenen (Netherlands), elected President

2004Bangkok, Thailand Mr. Valli Moosa (South Africa), elected President

1969New Delhi, IndiaDr. Harold Coolidge (USA), re-elected President

2000Amman, JordanMs. Yolanda Kakabadse (Ecuador), re-elected President

1966Lucerne, SwitzerlandDr. Harold Coolidge (USA), elected President

1996Montreal, CanadaMs. Yolanda Kakabadse (Ecuador), elected President

1963Nairobi, KenyaDr. François Bourlière (France), elected President

1994Buenos Aires, ArgentinaDr. Jay Hair (USA), elected President

1960Warsaw, Poland Professor Jean Baer (Switzerland), re-elected President

1990Perth, Australia Sir Shridath Ramphal (Guyana), elected President

1958Athens, GreeceProfessor Jean Baer (Switzerland), elected President

1988San José, Costa RicaDr. Monkombu Swaminathan (India), re-elected President

1956Edinburgh, UKProfessor Roger Heim (France), re-elected President

1984Madrid, SpainDr. Monkombu Swaminathan (India), elected President

1954Copenhagen, DenmarkProfessor Roger Heim (France), elected President

1981Christchurch, New ZealandProfessor Mohamed Kassas (Egypt), re-elected President

1952Caracas, VenezuelaDr. Charles Bernard (Switzerland), re-elected President

1978Ashkhabad, TurkmenistanProfessor Mohamed Kassas (Egypt), elected President

1950Brussels, BelgiumDr. Charles Bernard (Switzerland), re-elected President

1975Kinshasa, Congo (DRC)Dr. Donald Kuenen (Netherlands), re-elected President

1948Fontainebleau, FranceDr. Charles Bernard (Switzerland), elected President

World Conservation Congresses began in 1996 in Montreal. Previous to that IUCN assembled its Members in General orMembers’ Assemblies.

re-labeled as the World Conservation Congress. Foursuch congresses have now been held, in Montreal,Amman, Bangkok and Barcelona. The next Congresswill be held in Jeju, Republic of Korea, from 6–15September 2012.

As IUCN’s mission is to “influence, encourage andassist society”, its policy work is key to its ability tohave an impact on world conservation. A significantresult of each of these 23 convenings of IUCNMembers, the experts participating in IUCN’sCommissions, and invited partner organizations, hasbeen the policy recommendations from the Members,dealing with the most significant policy measures asidentified and elaborated by them. IUCN Congress“Resolutions” are aimed primarily at IUCN itself and“Recommendations” are directed to other agencies orthe world at large, though this distinction is sometimesa difficult one to draw. For ease of communication,these will both be called “resolutions” throughout thisdocument. Over 1000 such resolutions have beenadopted to date; the full text of all can be found at:www.iucn.org/about/work/programmes/global_policy/gpu_resources/gpu_res_recs.

This paper briefly highlights some of the major impactsand influences that these resolutions have had onconservation. It is not meant to be comprehensive, butrather to focus attention on some of the mostsignificant issues that the IUCN Membership hasaddressed, working together with IUCN’s sixCommissions (on Species, Protected Areas,Environmental Law, Ecosystem Management,Communications and Education, and Environmental,Economic and Social Policy) and supported by IUCN’sSecretariat. It will go into more depth on the resolutionsissued by the most recent World ConservationCongress, held in Barcelona, Spain, on 5–14 October2008.

Members may find this paper useful in preparingeffective Resolutions for the upcoming WorldConservation Congresses.

IUCN’s Members have issued over 1000resolutions since the organization’s foundingin 1948. These have been the Union’s most

effective means of influencing conservationpolicy, at species, site, national and global levels.They have helped set the internationalconservation agenda, for example throughsupporting the preparation of the WorldConservation Strategy and contributing toenvironmental treaties such as CITES, Ramsar,World Heritage and the Convention on BiologicalDiversity. Through its resolutions, IUCN has beena steadfast supporter of indigenous peoples,gender issues and the recognition ofconservation as part of human rights. It has alsofocused attention on conserving endangeredspecies and protected areas, helping to designeffective approaches that are now globalstandards. The resolutions process has helpedIUCN to be a leader in promoting sustainablerelationships between people and nature.

As the world’s leading association of conservationagencies, including 87 States, 120 governmentagencies, and 998 non-governmental organizations,IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) isin a unique position to reflect and promote the prioritiesof the global conservation community. It is the onlyenvironmental organization with Observer status at theUnited Nations General Assembly, enabling IUCN todeliver the policy perspectives of its Members at thehighest international level of diplomacy. These policiesare developed through an open consultative processinvolving the full IUCN Membership.

Since IUCN’s founding in 1948, its Members haveconvened every two to four years to debate and agreemajor policy issues and approve the organization’sprogramme and budget for the subsequent severalyears. It held 19 General Assemblies between 1948and 1994, typically with an accompanying TechnicalMeeting that addressed on-the-ground conservationissues. Beginning in 1996, the General Assembly andTechnical Meeting components were combined and

Impact of IUCN Resolutions 3

INTRODUCTION

www.iucn.org/about/work/programmes/global_policy/gpu_resources/gpu_res_recs

IUCN’s Members are all independent agencies, wellable to set their own agendas. But by workingtogether toward a common global agenda, the

Membership, Secretariat and Commissions can have afar greater impact than by working alone. As oneoutstanding example, the Members agreed at the 1978General Assembly, in Ashkhabad, USSR, to proceedwith producing what became the World ConservationStrategy (WCS). It was published in 1980 and givenstrong support by the first resolution of the 1981General Assembly, in Christchurch, New Zealand. TheWorld Conservation Strategy gave strong legitimacyto linking conservation with development, and was thefirst document to put the phrase “sustainabledevelopment” into the international vocabulary. Thisphrase has now entered the mainstream ofdevelopment thinking and has had a profound influenceon the design and operation of conservation anddevelopment practice throughout the world.

But the foundations for the WCS were built muchearlier, including at the Edinburgh General Assembly in1956, which called for landscape planning basedon ecological research as the starting point fordevelopment projects, the call for environmentalimpact assessments in Athens in 1958, and thepromotion of ecological principles for economicdevelopment in Banff in 1972. Following the adoptionof the World Conservation Strategy, IUCN resolutionscontinued to encourage governments to direct theirdevelopment assistance in more environmentally-friendly directions (for example, the 1984 MadridGeneral Assembly called for development assistanceagencies to implement the World ConservationStrategy and provided guidelines for doing so, and in

San José in 1988 Members called for the preparationof national conservation strategies, of whichdozens were subsequently prepared, often with IUCNtechnical assistance). The impacts of these resolutionshave helped to put conservation in the mainstream ofdevelopment.

Thanks at least partly to IUCN’s early adoption of theprinciple of sustainable development, it is now widelyrecognized that people are essential partners and keybeneficiaries for all conservation action. But this hasnot always been the case. Indigenous peoples haveespecially felt that they have been ignored by theconservation community, and indeed have sometimesbeen forced off their land so that protected areas couldbe established. But IUCN has long been a championfor the concept of people as part of nature. As early asthe 1952 General Assembly in Caracas, Membersrecognized the importance of cooperation amongpublic agencies, rural people and the privatesector. Other resolutions recognizing the importanceof local communities and traditional ways of life wereagreed in Athens in 1958, Kinshasa in 1975,Christchurch in 1981 (which called for heads ofgovernments and others to “take into account the stillexisting very large reservoir of traditional knowledgeand experience within local cultures which mustprovide a significant basis for the evolution of futuremanagement policies and planning actions…”),Buenos Aires in 1994, when a resolution on IUCNaction on indigenous people and sustainable use ofnatural resources led to the permanent inclusion of anindigenous representative on the IUCN Council,Montreal in 1996 (with resolutions on indigenouspeople, intellectual property rights and biodiversity;

4 Impact of IUCN Resolutions

1. SETTING THE GLOBAL CONSERVATION AGENDA

Setting the conservation agenda

IUCN has long been instrumental in setting the global conservation agenda. In 1980, IUCN, UNEPand WWF published the World Conservation Strategy, a seminal document that stressed theinterdependence of conservation and development, and first coined the term “sustainabledevelopment”. This publication emphasized that humanity, as a part of nature, has no future unlessnature and natural resources are conserved. Conservation cannot be achieved without developmentto alleviate the poverty and misery of millions of people. In 1991, Caring for the Earth: A Strategy forSustainable Living, was published to expand on and emphasize the World Conservation Strategy.Oriented towards practical action, this document set out a world strategy for a kind of developmentthat would provide real improvements in the quality of human life while simultaneously conservingthe vitality and diversity of the Earth. These documents have been the foundation of conservationefforts since.

development strategies, and in Bangkok (2004),resolutions covered poverty reduction, foodsecurity and conservation, conserving nature andreducing poverty by linking human rights and theenvironment, and the role of conservationorganizations in poverty reduction anddevelopment. The 2008 Congress in Barcelonacalled for mainstreaming gender equity and equalitywithin the Union and addressed conservation andpoverty reduction. These issues are now standardoperating procedure for IUCN, indicating a strongimpact on the design and implementation ofconservation interventions. They also form the basis forIUCN partnerships with various United Nationsorganizations and government agencies.

IUCN resolutions have also led to the establishmentand support of many international programmes andinstitutions, including support for the InternationalWhaling Commission (Lucerne, 1966), calling for theestablishment of conservation departments at thenational level (New Delhi, 1969), supporting theUNESCO Man and Biosphere Programme (Banff,1972), calling for the establishment of ICIMOD(International Center for Integrated MountainDevelopment) (Ashkhabad, 1977), the establishmentof the Botanical Gardens Conservation Secretariat(San José, 1988), the establishment of the WorldConservation Monitoring Centre (San José, 1988),establishment and supporting of the GlobalBiodiversity Forum (Buenos Aires, 1994), and activeparticipation in the Millennium EcosystemAssessment (Amman, 2000 and Bangkok, 2004).Each of these initiatives has played an important role inspreading IUCN’s mission across numerous sectorsand all parts of the world. While IUCN was not actingalone in these initiatives, its impact helped toaccelerate the establishment and effective functioningof them.

indigenous peoples, mineral and oil extraction,infrastructure and development works; and indigenouspeoples and protected areas), Amman in 2000 (onimpacts of military activities on the communities ofindigenous peoples in the Arctic, and on indigenouspeoples, sustainable use of natural resources andinternational trade), and Bangkok in 2004 (onindigenous peoples, protected areas and the CBDProgramme of Work, and on protection for indigenouspeoples living in voluntary isolation).

The 2008 Barcelona Congress was a majorbreakthrough, with no less than 10 resolutions dealingwith local and indigenous peoples, including onempowering local communities to conserve andmanage natural resources in Africa, supportingindigenous conservation territories and otherindigenous peoples’ and community conserved areas,implementing the United Nations Declaration on theRights of Indigenous Peoples, and integrating cultureand cultural diversity into IUCN’s policy andprogramme. All of this helped lead to a high-leveldialogue, called “Sharing Power”, held in Whakatane,New Zealand, in January 2011 and attended by theChairs of IUCN’s six Commissions and representativesof indigenous peoples. The dialogue called forrenewed efforts to implement the Barcelona resolutionsrelevant to indigenous peoples.

Through this effort of several decades, IUCN has madea major contribution to ensuring that the world’scultural diversity is included as part of themainstream of conservation concerns.

IUCN has also been a leader in applying conservationprinciples to address issues of poverty and gender. Forexample, in San José (1988), Members called forincreased efforts to enhance and support women’sparticipation in conservation and sustainable


While law is the responsibility of governments,IUCN has performed a key function indeveloping much of the international

legislation that today governs the relationships amonggovernments in the field of conservation. IUCN’sEnvironmental Law Centre and the IUCN Commissionon Environmental Law were well placed to support thedevelopment of such legislation, and have playedactive parts in doing so. As early as 1954 (long beforeRachel Carson’s 1962 classic book, Silent Spring,popularized the concern), IUCN identified theimportance of dealing with the effects of pesticides onmammals, birds and insects, further strengthened in1981 in Christchurch and in Buenos Aires in 1994;these ultimately led to the Basel Convention onTransboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastesand their Disposal and the Stockholm Conventionon Persistent Organic Pollutants, and governmentsthroughout the world enacted national legislation onpollution control, often with the advice of theEnvironmental Law Centre. The impact has been asignificant reduction in at least some forms of pollution.

At the 1958 General Assembly in Athens, IUCN laid thegroundwork for the World Heritage Convention, andhas continued to play an important role in its

implementation; IUCN remains responsible for theformal evaluation of natural sites nominated forinclusion on the World Heritage list, thereby sustainingits impact on the international efforts to conservenatural areas of outstanding universal value. Thesubsequent General Assembly, in Warsaw in 1960,built the foundations for the Convention onInternational Trade in Endangered Species(CITES), another convention to which IUCN has madesubstantial and continuing contributions, drawingespecially on the expertise of the Species SurvivalCommission. At the 1972 General Assembly, in Banff,Canada, the support to the World Heritage Conventionwas further strengthened, and the Convention onWetlands of International Importance (which IUCNhelped to draft) was strongly supported through IUCNoffering to host the Secretariat (an arrangement thathas lasted until the present).

The main elements of the Convention on BiologicalDiversity (CBD) were identified at the ChristchurchGeneral Assembly in 1981, which called for IUCN’sSecretariat to analyze the technical, legal, andeconomic and financial matters relating to theconservation, accessibility and use of geneticresources with a view to providing the basis for an


2. SUPPORTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONALCONSERVATION LAW

Landmark developments in the history of IUCN

n The World Heritage Convention, 1968n The Ramsar Convention, 1971n The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) , 1974n The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), 1992n The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services (IPBES), 2010

international arrangement and for rules to implement it.Numerous subsequent resolutions added furthersupport to the emerging Convention on BiologicalDiversity, which has become a heartland issue formany IUCN Members, and for the organization as awhole (for example, resolutions in Madrid on wildgenetic resources and in San José on endangeredspecies habitat protection and on development ofinternational environmental law, both contain details onelements of what eventually evolved into the CBD).Once the CBD entered into force, IUCN Members alsosupported its Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety(Bangkok, 2004), which IUCN helped to draft. TheCBD is now the leading international instrument foraddressing the conservation and sustainable use ofbiodiversity, promoting equitable sharing of the benefitsfrom trade in genetic resources, and ensuring that anytrade in genetically modified organisms is subject to theappropriate oversight.

Also at the Christchurch General Assembly, IUCNfurther promoted the Law of the Sea, with numerousother resolutions dealing with specific aspects ofmarine conservation. These included deep sea miningand establishment of protected areas of the deep sea,Antarctica Environment and the Southern Ocean, theenvironmental law of the sea, the Polar BearConvention (Banff, 1972, and for which IUCN’s PolarBear Specialist Group is the technical advisor), andmany others. The support for legal protection of the


oceans has continued to grow, with the BarcelonaCongress issuing several marine-related resolutionswith legal implications, such as achieving conservationof marine biodiversity in areas beyond nationaljurisdictions. However, much remains to be done in thefield of marine conservation, requiring unprecedentedcooperation among Members, Commissions andIUCN’s Global Marine and Polar Programme.

Back on land, IUCN supported the African Charterfor Protection and Conservation of Nature(Nairobi, 1963), the World Charter for Nature(Kinshasa, 1975 and Madrid, 1984), the establishmentof an international database on environmental law(Banff, 1972 and Barcelona, 2008), the ASEANAgreement on the Conservation of Nature andNatural Resources (Montreal, 1996), and theInternational Covenant on Environment andDevelopment (Montreal, 1996 and Barcelona, 2008).IUCN’s Environmental Law Centre contributed to thedrafting of many of these, typically with support andinspiration from the Commission on Environmental Law.The actual impact of these initiatives has been mixed,but they remain available when the conditions areconducive to their full implementation.

In summary, the impact of IUCN on establishing theinternational legal framework for conservation has beensubstantial, and this framework has helped establishIUCN’s own priorities for action.

Conservation is a constantly evolving field, andthe IUCN meetings of Members provide anexcellent opportunity to identify emerging

issues that may not have yet appeared on the globalconservation agenda, the consciousness of the public,or even the attention of governments. Resolutionsprovide an opportunity to identify such issues and atleast begin to generate the necessary actions. Notableamong such issues are:

n phasing out the concept of maximum sustainableyield of individual species and replacing it withecosystem management (Kinshasa, 1975);

n addressing energy and conservation, includinggreater emphasis on renewable forms of energy(Kinshasa, 1975, long before alternative forms ofenergy became an urgent priority);

n pointing out that renewable energy may notalways be benign in its effects on nature(Christchurch, 1981), an issue that is nowreceiving increasing attention;

n recognizing the watershed as a particularly usefulscale for conservation management (Caracas,1952);

n calling attention to climate change and its impacton conservation (Warsaw, 1960) several decades

before this was generally recognized as a majorissue, with subsequent assemblies dealing withthe issue in more detail; Barcelona, 2008, forexample, addressed reducing emissions fromdeforestation and forest degradation, climatechange and overexploitation of natural resources,climate change mitigation targets and actions forbiodiversity conservation, climate change andhuman rights, and mobilizing action to buildresilience and assist adaptation to climate changeof coral reefs and marine ecosystems and peoplethat depend on them;

n calling for conservation of marine resources,including krill (Banff, 1972 – note that the loss ofkrill is only now becoming a major internationalconcern);

n promoting protection of mangroves (Christchurch,1981), now recognized as a major concern interms of the multiple ecosystem services theseforests provide;

n identifying some of the environmentalconsequences of nuclear war (San José,1988);

n providing guidelines regarding research andscientific collecting of threatened species(Barcelona, 2008);


3. IDENTIFYING EMERGING ISSUES IN CONSERVATION

IUCN at a glance

n The world’s oldest and largest global conservation network

n A unique democratic union with more than 1,200 State and NGO member organizations insome 160 countries

n Almost 11,000 expert volunteers generating scientific and legal knowledge, and developingstandards for the conservation community

n Over 1,000 staff in 45 offices worldwide

n Hundreds of partners in governments, NGOs and scientific, business and local communities

n Publishes vital knowledge products such as the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™, theworld’s leading resource on the conservation status of plant and animal species

n Thousands of field projects and activities around the world, combining the best available sciencewith the traditional knowledge of local communities

n Official observer status at the United Nations General Assembly

n Funded by governments, bilateral and multilateral agencies, member organizations andcorporations

n Total annual revenue (2010) CHF 113 million

n expanding conservation action to the landscapescale (Barcelona, 2008, addressing the EuropeanGreen Belt Initiative, ecological connectivity in thealpine region, and enhancing ecological networksand connectivity between conservation areas);

n recognizing the growing importance of theprivate sector in supporting conservation (forexample, Montreal, 1996, on a productiverelationship between IUCN and the private sectorand Barcelona, 2008, addressing issues such asguidelines for conservation organizations wishing towork with the private sector, impacts ofinfrastructure and extractive industries on protectedareas, and citizens’ advisory councils for large-scale extractive industry projects);

n identifying the importance of addressingconservation and international trade (BuenosAires, 1994);

n converting military bases into conservationareas (Buenos Aires, 1994);

n reducing undersea noise pollution (Bangkok,2004); and


n promoting conservation in cities (Bangkok,2004).

Resolutions have also supported issues that werealready well recognized, but receiving inadequateattention. An outstanding example at the BarcelonaCongress was marine conservation, which was thesubject of no less than 24 resolutions, coveringtopics like fisheries management, species in needof conservation, conservation of marine biodiversityin areas beyond national jurisdictions, establishingmarine protected areas, and conservation ofmangroves and coral reefs. These resolutions havehelped place IUCN in the middle of the growinginternational effort to conserve the world’s oceansand their biological riches.

The actual impacts of these resolutions have varied,but many of them helped to mobilize broad supportamong the IUCN Membership for new approachesto conservation action (many of which are now inthe mainstream) and emerging issues that requiredthe greater attention they are now receiving.

IUCN has long been recognized as a leader in theconservation of species and protected areas, withespecially strong Commissions of volunteers in these

fields and numerous Members as well as strongSecretariat teams dealing with them. Resolutions haveoffered Members an opportunity to bring attention toprinciples of wildlife management, such as:

n standards for captive management (Kinshasa,1975);

n numerous resolutions on species affected bytrade, such as the CITES ivory quota system (SanJosé, 1988);

n control of invasive alien species (for example,on carnivorous snails for biological control, SanJosé, 1988);

n sustainable use of wild living resources(Buenos Aires, 1994, Montreal, 1996, Amman,2000, Bangkok, 2004 and Barcelona, 2008);

n elimination of the illegal use of poisoned bait asa method for controlling predators in the EuropeanUnion (Barcelona, 2008); and

n introduction, translocation and re-introductionof wild species (Buenos Aires, 1994).

Plants, too, have received considerable attention, forexample at the 2000 Amman World ConservationCongress, which supported IUCN’s preparation of aGlobal Programme for Plant Conservation, which wassubsequently the basis for the Global Strategy onPlant Conservation adopted by the Convention onBiological Diversity in 2002 and a revised versionsupported by IUCN that was adopted by the CBD in2010. In terms of impacts, many of these principles,such as sustainable use and standards for introductionand translocation, are now standard operatingprocedures for many countries.

Numerous resolutions have also addressed individualspecies needing conservation action. These are toomany to list, but examples, among many that could becited, include: kouprey (Caracas, 1952); lowlandgorillas (Warsaw, 1960); orangutans, spotted cats,marine turtles, birds of paradise, blue whales and redcolobus monkeys, all at the Nairobi General Assemblyin 1963; giant panda (San José, 1988); and theAustralian population of salt water crocodiles (Madrid,

1984, a population that has now strongly recovered).Tigers were singled out at the New Delhi GeneralAssembly in 1969, which helped lead to India’sProject Tiger, which was launched in 1972 and hasbeen credited with saving the Bengal tiger. Morerecently, IUCN responded to the rapid die-off ofvultures in South Asia (Bangkok, 2004) and wasinstrumental in calling the world’s attention to theamphibian crisis and how to address it (Barcelona,2008), making this a top global conservation priority.

In the field of protected areas, it was early recognizedby IUCN Members that international cooperation couldprovide essential support for the national agencies thatwere seeking to establish such areas. At the 1958Athens General Assembly, Members agreed that IUCNshould promote the establishment of a UnitedNations List of National Parks and EquivalentReserves, and take responsibility for compiling the list:it is now known as the World Database on ProtectedAreas, and includes over 100,000 sites. IUCN’sProtected Areas Programme works with UNEP’s WorldConservation Monitoring Centre in maintaining andpromoting this list, which is freely available atwww.wdpa.org.

Many fundamental principles that are now broadlyaccepted in protected area management were broughtto public attention by IUCN resolutions, including:

n using ecological criteria for establishingboundaries of protected areas (Banff, 1972);

n establishing categories of different types ofprotected areas (New Delhi, 1969, updated atBangkok, 2004);

n recognizing private protected area systems(San José, 1988);

n providing best practice protected area guidelinesfor ecological restoration (Barcelona, 2008);

n recognizing the value of community conservedareas (Bangkok, 2004) and municipal protectedareas (Barcelona, 2008);

n promoting transboundary protected areas(Bangkok, 2004); and

n recognizing and conserving sacred natural sitesin protected areas (Barcelona, 2008).


4. MOBILIZING SPECIFIC ACTIONS ON SPECIES AND

PROTECTED AREAS

Among the many individual protected areas orprotected area systems where IUCN resolutions haveprovided support are: Killarny National Park, Ireland(Edinburgh, 1956); Japan’s national parks (Warsaw,1960); the national parks of Ecuador, Indonesia,Jordan, Kenya, South Africa and Sabah (all at the 1963General Assembly in Nairobi, which also passedresolutions on individual protected areas such asAbruzzo, Gran Paradiso and Gombe Stream); Kahuzi-Biega National Park (Lucerne, 1966, now a WorldHeritage Site); Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda (NewDelhi, 1969); the Great Barrier Reef (now a WorldHeritage Site) and the Firth of Thames, New Zealand(now named a Ramsar Site – both from Christchurch,1981); and tropical rainforest in Queensland (Madrid,1984, now a World Heritage Site).

Of particular interest was a resolution at the BanffGeneral Assembly (1972) which proposed atransboundary protected area between the US andCanada, leading to the Kluane/Wrangell-St.Elias/Glacier Bay/Tatshenshin-Alsek transboundaryWorld Heritage Site, the world’s largest such protectedarea and an important example of connecting individualprotected areas to create much larger contiguousareas that can support wide-ranging species andpotentially adapt to changing climatic conditions. Manysubsequent resolutions promoted transboundaryprotected areas and conservation corridors, with anoutstanding example being the Barcelona resolution onthe Great Ecological Connectivity Corridor that wouldinclude the Cantabric Range, the Pyrenees, the MassifCentral and the Western Alps of western Europe. Theimpact of IUCN on protected area establishment andeffective management can be indicated by the rapidgrowth of protected areas in virtually all countries of theworld, often based on the principles indicated above.

While this short paper has given only asmall taste of the impact of IUCN’sresolutions, it has also demonstrated thatIUCN has long been in the forefront of theconservation movement, indicatingimportant new ways of finding progress inan increasingly complicated world,seeking international cooperation throughenvironmental conventions, andrecommending effective approaches toseeking a healthy environment that canenhance human well-being.


INTERNATIONAL UNION FOR CONSERVATION OF NATURE

WORLD HEADQUARTERSRue Mauverney 281196 Gland, [email protected] +4122 999 0000Fax +41 22 999 0002www.iucn.org

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