IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature

Human society is currently developing faster than at any other time in its history and is constantly being challenged by the scale and consequences of social, economic and environmental change. Addressing these challenges in a way that ensures quality of life for both present and future generations requires new visions and new approaches.

Innovation is a key ingredient in responding to and adapting to changes that result from an ever more complex world characterized by increasing human demands and a limited resources base.

IUCN has a particular role and responsibility to “encourage, influence and assist societies” in meeting the challenge of sustainable development. IUCN’s forward-looking and innovative work needs to be continuously supported to ensure that we provide solutions for the problems of tomorrow, and to integrate these solutions into IUCN’s programmatic work.

These projects aim to

• catalyse innovation
• promote integration
• generate information
• stimulate communication

Use of the Fund is based on an integrated approach across IUCN's programmes (including regional, global thematic and commission programmes) and clear outputs that are scientifically credible, can be readily communicated to key audiences, and have strong potential to attract further investment by donors and partners.

In addition to specific results, each issue supported by the 3I-C Fund produces the following outputs:

• Situation Analysis - to define the factors affecting ecosystems, people and institutions within the context of the issue being addressed, building on existing information and expertise. This analysis also includes clear strategic management options regarding IUCN’s engagement in addressing the given issue.
• Policy/Position Statement - to inform the IUCN Programme and the Union's constituency by proposing how IUCN could advocate the issue.
• Communication Product(s) - to effectively contribute to sharing knowledge and learning on the key issues, in particular beyond IUCN's traditional constituency.
• Project Proposals - to secure funding for future work.

A Leverage Initiative (LI) is a topical, targeted and time-limited effort (4-8 years) designed to influence policy and practice. LIs will build upon institutional learning, stimulate innovative ideas and test their viability and effectiveness. LI’s use the Union’s strengths to influence conservation and development policy and practice in areas that have been outside IUCN’s traditional area of work. They enable existing component programmes (Commissions, regions and thematic programmes) to work together on new strategic issues with members and partners. A LI will demonstrate how environmental concerns can be better integrated into the economic and social pillars of sustainable development. Unlike the open application process for the 3I-C fund, a consortium of programmes will be invited to develop a LI proposal based on strategic priorites identified.

The Deputy Director General and a team of advisors meet regularly to consider ideas generated within the Secretariat and Commissions so as to decide on the most challenging, strategic and innovative issues for IUCN annually. 

The following Leverage Initiatives and 3I-C projects are in various phases of implementation:

+ Creating visions of Sustainable Energy Futures (Leader: Nadine McCormick)

An essential starting point will be to build a better understanding of the the relationships between developments in the global energy system and ecosystem management.  This includes how energy alternatives impact on ecosystems, and how ecosystems underpin energy alternatives. It also includes developing an understanding of how all different energy alternatives – including fossil fuels, biomass, hydrogen, wind, wave and geothermal – fit with different energy needs and end uses. Building alternative futures scenario exploring how these critical linkages might develop will help inform better policy choices, while catalysing collective sense-making between the key stakeholders, especially women, involved in energy-, water- and food security in different countries. This initiative has two main objectives:

• Understanding the likely future(s) of energy production, distribution and consumption including implications of the application of technologies for energy efficiency and for new options for producing energy.
• Analysing the likely implications of such futures for ecosystems and the goods and services they provide.

+Greening the World Economy (Leader: David Huberman)

The objective of this initiative is to lay the foundations for the new Thematic Programme Area on ‘Greening the World Economy’ (TPA 5), building on related activities within IUCN and integrating these with relevant external networks and initiatives. The initial focus of activities under TPA5 is to develop a coherent strategy and a core network of supportive individuals, organizations, and projects spanning all components of the Union (members, commissions, secretariat, and partners).

+Conservation for Poverty Reduction (Leader: Georgina Peard)

IUCN launched the Conservation for Poverty Reduction Initiative (CPRI) in 2005. This Leverage Initiative will finalize the strategy to develop and "package" a number of concepts for pilot project proposals, engage a network of regional offices, members, partners and commissions, and ensure the availability of knowledge and communications products on poverty and biodiversity conservation.The expected outcomes of this initiative are:

• Seed funding for at least two projects under CPRI
• An operational small unit at HQ for project development and coordination
• At least one major global parnership under CPRI
• A developed Pan-African component;
• A strategy for engagement with commissions and members.

 

+ Mapping out Marine Protected Areas
(Lead: Andrew Hurd)

As a result of the 3I-C investment, a series of innovative products and services have already been launched in partnership with the world’s leading brand, Google, and many other IUCN members and partners. Highlights include:

• the Marine Protected Area (MPA) layer on Google Earth, featuring an innovative technological design that represents a first even for Google;
• the global MPA web portal, www.protectplanetocean.org;
• the Interactive MPA (iMPA) pages of the portal which allow users to upload photos, videos and data to the MPA layer in Google Earth. 

A major launch with Google, in which our MPA layer will feature, will occur late 2008 or early 2009 which should increase visibility of our work exponentially. In addition, as a direct result of our partnership, Google Earth made a major splash at the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona – highlights include the full-day technical training course, an interactive display at the Ocean Pavilion, participation in two major workshops where our MPA layer was featured, and co-hosting the WCPA-Marine reception at the Maritime Museum.

+ Vulnerability and resilience: learning lessons and integrating ecosystems into assessment and response (Leader: Neville Ash)

The main goal of this project is to improve IUCN’s capacity to assess and address the impacts of climate change and disasters on vulnerable communities. In doing so, the project will also develop an innovative strategy for capturing lessons learned from IUCN’s programme and project implementation, and develop innovative metrics to assess ecosystem-related elements of community vulnerability.This project is divided into two phases.

• Phase I will focus on enhancing IUCN’s internal capacities to capture lessons learned, and to develop innovative metrics. It will also identify key constituencies and a communications strategy.
• Phase II will focus on the implementation of innovative learning tools developed in Phase I, and the incorporation of innovative metrics into assessing community vulnerability and resilience to disasters and climate change, through a series of workshops.

This strategy is built on IUCN’s commitment to enhancing knowledge – empowerment - and governance of its members and constituency. The proposed 3I-C programme will be coordinated by the Ecosystem Management Programme, in close collaboration with the Commission on Ecosystem Management, IUCN’s Senior Adviser on Social Policy, and several regional and thematic programmes.

+ PACT 2020 Protected Areas and Climate Turnaround (Leader: David Sheppard)

The challenge addressed by this project is to ensure that systems of protected areas are regarded as eligible for use of funding for climate change adaptation and/or mitigation and to capture some of these financial flows through effective implementation arrangements.

The objective is to develop the case for systems of protected areas, connected through the regional landscape/seascape as a primary adaptation mechanism, to meet the demand from the global community for secure repositories of the world’s carbon, for maintenance of ecosystem services in the face of climate change and to continue to deliver these benefits for local livelihoods. At the international level, it involves influencing policy and enabling environments to facilitate the eligibility of protected areas for climate change related funding. Highlighting the value of protected areas will generate the political will, sustainable financing and powerful communication platform that will transform the global perception of protected area systems.

+Drylands Challenge Paper
(Leader: Caterina Wolfangel)

The IUCN 3I-C drylands project ‘A new paradigm for drylands’ is developing a Drylands Challenge Paper jointly with IIED and UNDP-DDC. This challenge paper will build on previous UNDP Dryland Challenge Papers that have been undertaken under the Global Drylands Imperative – an informal group of international organizations, donors, NGOs and individuals interested or actively involved in dryland development (including IUCN). 

Building on the success of the Stern Climate Change report and on valuation studies that IUCN has conducted in drylands the focus of the document will be to challenge existing dryland myths (wastelands, chronic poverty, negative rates of return, etc) with economic facts and figures.

The working title is Drylands – an Economic Asset for Rural Livelihoods and Economic Growth.
Read more

+ The macroeconomic connection: monetary and fiscal policies for Sustainability in Latin America
(Leader: Joshua Bishop)

The driving forces that pressure on the environment and the natural resources are under the influence of macroeconomic policies. The objectives of this action-oriented research project is to analyze the intersection between the environment and macroeconomic policies in five Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Mexico.
The objectives of this project is to:
1. Identify the effects of macroeconomic policies on the environment (biodiversity, forests, aquifers, soils, etc...)
2. Examine how macroeconomic policies contrain or strengthen environmental policies.
3. Examine ways and means to improve green national accounting.
4. Stregthen the role of IUCN in engaging more with multilateral institutions (IMF, World Bank, etc..).
A team of researchers has now been aasembled and the study is led by Alejandro Nadal, Chair of CEESP Theme on Economics, Markets, Trade and Investment.
A workshop was held in Quito in February 2008, with CEESP, SUR and the research team.
Key results of the study will be presented at the World Conservation Congress.

+ Invasive Alien Species
(Leader: Geoffrey Howard, Eastern Africa Regional Office).

The 3I-C project "INVASIVES AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT” began in 2003 to promote the involvement of IUCN in alien invasive species issues at the widest possible scale. Most activities since then have centred around IUCN’s attempts to secure international funding for a full-time Senior Coordinator position to promote and manage IAS activities within and across the Union . It has also provided support to the Global Invasives Species Programme (GISP, where we are represented on both the governing Board and on the Finance Committee), to the Invasive Species Specialist Group (ISSG of SSC, http://www.issg.org/) and has contributed to a number of policy issues (including a policy statement of Invasives and Trade) and supported various interactions with the CBD related to article 8h and Target Ten of the Global Plant Conservation Strategy. The search for sustainable funding for IUCN to play a major role in the biodiversity and poverty alleviation aspects of IAS continues.

+ IUCN and Certification
(Leader: Nigel Dudley, World Commission on Protected Areas).

The controversy over certification is complicated and contentious. Some insist that certification entrenches the “lowest common denominator” as the standard of performance, while at the same time providing a basis for businesses to oppose governmental adoption of formal legal regulations that may be more specifically directed at local problems and needs. Opposing arguments maintain that these standards protect developing countries by creating a “safety net” that supplements law where voluntary action is expected to yield better results, or where national legislation might not be able to impose controls on multinationals and others. Most tellingly, many on both sides of the debate express concern that certification schemes may be an indirect mechanism for restricting the opportunities for poorer communities and traditional peoples to enter new markets and participate in other positively-viewed activities, especially where those activities involve/impact natural resources and biological diversity.

Conservation-related certification is suggested with increasing frequency as a means of bringing the private sector into the work of addressing conservation problems in diverse areas – e.g., local community business opportunities, bioprospecting, and protected area management. At the same time, issues of social and cultural welfare, as well as those of environmental protection and the dependability of certification mechanisms are beginning to take centre stage.

IUCN, with its long-established role as a knowledge-based organisation focused on nature conservation, as well as its reputation as a neutral “platform” for the sharing of information and discussion on such issues, is currently exploring the risks, challenges and opportunities of a variety of certification ideas, including the utility of certification systems for increasing the management effectiveness of protected areas.

+ Knowledge Management Study - Strengthening knowledge creation and -sharing in IUCN
Leader: Elroy Bos, Acting Head Global Communication 

• Knowledge Management Study - Executive summary [PDF]
• Knowledge Management Study - Full report [PDF]

+ IUCN Climate Fund
Leader: Enrique Lahmann, Senior Programme Coordinator
Go to website

+ Scenarios for Protected Areas
Leader: Jeffrey A. McNeely, Chief Scientist
Go to website

• Final report [PDF]

+ Making Trade Work for Conservation: An IUCN Policy Agenda
Leader: Martha Chouchena-Rojas, Policy, Biodiversity and International Agreements Unit
Go to website

+ Poverty Alleviation and Conservation: Linking Sustainable Livelihoods and Ecosystem Management
Leader: Stewart Maginnis, Forest Conservation Programme
Go to website

+ Launching an IUCN Programme for Central Asia
Go to website

+ IUCN and NEPAD: A New Framework for Environmental Governance in Africa
Go to website

+ The Sustainable Use of Species and Ecosystems
Developing tools for the management of living wild resources from a quantitative review of the factors that determine sustainability
Go to website

+ The Precautionary Principle and Environmental Governance: Sustainable Development, Natural Resource Management and Biodiversity Conservation
Go to website: www.pprinciple.net

• Report [PDF]

+ Extractive Industries and Biodiversity
Leader: Mohammad Rafiq, Business and Biodiversity Programme
Go to website