3rd IUCN World Conserv congress

3^rd IUCN World Conservation Congress

Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre
Bangkok, Thailand
November 17-25, 2004

Over 3,500 conservationists, policymakers, funders and community representatives gathered at the 3rd IUCN World Conservation Congress to share ideas and find common ground to advance conservation efforts worldwide. Held every four years, the Congress is the venue for IUCN members, including The Nature Conservancy, to set a course of action for IUCN activities and discuss global approaches to conservation. IUCN – The World Conservation Union – is unique in that its members include 77 States, 114 government agencies, and 800-plus NGOs from some 140 countries. This Congress was one of the world’s largest gatherings of conservationists ever.

The Congress theme, "People and Nature - only one world", highlighted conservation as an integral and essential component of sustainable development. By bringing knowledge about biodiversity, ecosystems and species into the mainstream of decision-making in our societies, the conservation community, through events like the Congress, is working to make a significant contribution to reaching the targets of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, as well as the Millennium Development Goals.

Little girls from Gimpu Village, Lore Lindu National Park
©Jennifer Grizzard/The Nature Conservancy

Postcards from the Congress
Can people and nature coexist? A Nature Conservancy staffer considered these questions as she attended the conference and traveled through Thailand.

November 18, 2004: From Local to Global and Back Again…
November 19, 2004: Unraveling the Questions of Conservation
November 21, 2004: Rejuvenation. Inspiration.

Four sub-themes framed the Congress agenda and fostered debate and discussion around the issues facing conservation today;

Ecosystem Management: Bridging sustainability and productivity.
Health, Poverty and Conservation: Responding to the challenge of human well-being.
Biodiversity Loss and Species Extinction: Managing risk in a changing world.
Markets, Business and the Environment: Strengthening corporate social responsibility, law and policy.

The Conservancy’s Participation

As an active member, the Conservancy worked closely with IUCN and other conservation organizations to shape the Congress agenda. Conservancy staff and partners contributed to over 25 different sessions on a wide range of conservation topics. By participating, we helped to:

Create and strengthen partnerships that will advance the Conservancy’s work on priority places and threats.
Contribute to developing common approaches and standards to strengthen conservation capacity globally.
Disseminate tools and methodologies of Conservation by Design.
Advance the global conservation agenda.

Goals and Outcomes

Through our participation in the Congress, the Conservancy and our partners helped:

Promote the connections between conservation, human well-being and the Millennium Development Goals to create new partners in conservation.
Increase implementation of the COP-7 Protected Areas Program of Work among governments by providing tools and methodologies.
Support efforts to establish global capacity building and partnership principles that address needs of Indigenous Peoples, communities and other stakeholders.
Establish a new approach for sharing conservation knowledge and information through adoption of the Conservation Commons principles.
Advance marine conservation efforts.
Increase collaboration between the agriculture industry and conservation efforts.
Build awareness of wildfires as a global conservation issue.

Sunrise, Flor de Oro camp
Hermes Justiniano

For more information:

Program of Nature Conservancy Events (PDF)
Download a program of Conservancy events at the Congress.
3^rd IUCN World Conservation Congress
The official web site for the Congress.

Related links:

Press Release: Conservation Groups Commit to Bridging the Information Divide
A unique coalition of organizations from around the world is committing to sharing data, information, and knowledge in new ways intended to improve the effectiveness of conservation.
Report: Fire, Ecosystems and People: A Preliminary Report of Fire as a Global Conservation Issue
The Conservancy, WWF and IUCN launched the first global assessment of changes in fire behavior and the implications for biodiversity conservation.
The Nature Conservancy and COP-7
Final documents, as negotiated by COP-7 delegates, detailed the goal of establishing comprehensive, ecologically-representative and effectively managed national and regional systems of protected terrestrial areas by 2010 and of protected marine areas by 2012.
2003 IUCN World Parks Congress
The Nature Conservancy was a proud supporter of and participant in the 2003 IUCN World Parks Congress, which provided a major global forum for setting the agenda for protected areas.