1) IUCN Red List Update
Congress kicked off its scientific announcements with the much-awaited update IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species™.
Uplifting news: four commercially-fished tuna species are on the way to recovery. Robust enforcement of sustainable fishing practices and fishing quotas have shown that stocks can recover. Pacific bluefin tuna (Thunnus orientalis), for instance, has moved from Vulnerable to Near Threatened, however this species still remains severely depleted, at less than 5% of its original biomass.
“These Red List assessments are proof that sustainable fisheries approaches work (…) We need to continue enforcing sustainable fishing quotas and cracking down on illegal fishing,” said Dr Bruce B. Collette, Chair of the IUCN SSC Tuna and Billfish Specialist Group.
2) Biodiversity: hand in hand with climate change
IUCN delegates delved into the myriad of ways that climate change affects biodiversity. Participants looked into how species face extinction due to habitat destruction — destruction of coral reefs, deforestation, intensive farming — and have to contend with the ramifications of climate change, such as freak weather events and rising sea levels.
The strong link between biodiversity and climate change is backed up by the Red List: not only are all of the threatened shark and ray species overfished, 31% are affected by loss and degradation of habitat and 10% are affected by climate change.
3) Business and conservation
Over the eight days of Congress, global businesses — from fashion and food to energy and transport — put the spotlight on the relationship between business and conservation. Whether the raw materials are cocoa, coffee or cotton, business leaders around the table grappled with how business either impacts the natural world or is dependent on it.
CEO Summit participants stressed that companies must rapidly learn to safeguard nature throughout value chains, for example by adopting sustainable agriculture to establish a regenerative economy, and by making a decisive shift towards new business models. Representatives came up with tangible ways to achieve the fast-approaching United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
4) The first CEO summit
For the first time in its history, IUCN convened not only several thousand leaders, government representatives, civil society, indigenous peoples, academia, but also business leaders who have the decision-making power to achieve a nature-positive future. Companies including EDF, ENGIE, Group CMA CGM, IkTaar Sustainability, Kering, L’Occitane, LVMH, Nestlé, Pernod Ricard, Shell, TotalEnergies and Veolia, totalling more than US $1 trillion in market capital and $655 billion in annual turnover, stressed the need for business to take swift action to reduce its environmental footprint.
L’OCCITANE Group ran through the ins and outs of their programme RESIST: a 3-year, US $2 million public–private partnership boosting the local economy in Burkina Faso while protecting biodiversity. "We can't let nature down, we can't let ourselves down. So let's scale collaboration up,” said Adrien Geiger, Group Sustainability Officer and International Director of L’OCCITANE en Provence.
5) Translating commitment into action
The global environmental Congress wrapped up on an action-based note, ensuring commitments bear tangible, measurable results. Both state and non-state delegates announced a vast array of measurable actions, including:
• France’s commitment to achieve 30% of protected areas nationally by 2022, and 5% of its Mediterranean maritime area under strong protection by 2027;
• Over 30 subnational governments, cities, partner organisations and IUCN agreed to expand universal access to high-quality green spaces and to enhance urban biodiversity in 100 cities, representing around 100 million citizens by 2025;
• Under the leadership of Western Indian Ocean states, IUCN and partners committed to the Great Blue Wall Initiative, the first regionally connected network developing a regenerative blue economy for 70 million people, while conserving and restoring marine and coastal biodiversity.
The Congress concluded by looking to the future, urging governments to implement a nature-based approach to pandemic recovery and to ensure at least 10% of global recovery funds are ring-fenced for the natural world.
Participants sent a firm message ahead of the COP26 negotiating process: 2021 is the cusp of the decisive decade. Opportunities to address environmental challenges must be seized now.