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Six days; 22 organisational collaborations; over 100 participants and speakers from across the globe…

Flourishing Diversity was thrilled to co-host the Reimagine Pavilion at the congress for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Convening every four years, the IUCN World Conservation Congress (WCC) is where governments, conservation organisations and practitioners come together to set priorities that drive conservation and sustainable development action globally.

Why was Flourishing Diversity at the IUCN WCC?

Our programme of events at the Reimagine Pavilion was designed to challenge the status quo and celebrate examples of effective local area-based conservation, by encouraging dialogue, reflection, and visioning. It created a space for practitioners within NGO’s, Foundations and Governments to listen to diverse voices, and to each other, so that, together they could think critically, and creatively, about how to move forward.

To ensure sustainable life on Earth ahead of the tipping points predicted by scientists, it is vital that we redress the dominant approaches to conservation that are no longer viable, and bring much greater attention and funding to locally-led, culture-centred practices and practitioners.

Current plans to significantly increase vast ‘protected areas’ fenced off from humans, excludes, displaces and even criminalises local communities and Indigenous peoples.

As our co-founder, Jerome Lewis stated:

“To address the ecological crisis, conservation must switch from top-down to ground up. It must serve local people and support communities to develop conservation approaches based on their environmental understanding and needs.”

In collaboration with remarkable individuals and organisations, we held panels, case studies, film screenings, listening sessions, dialogues and creative interventions, focused on culture-centred conservation, rights of nature and multi-species learning.

We are grateful to our partners that helped make it all happen: Gaia Foundation, Synchronicity Earth, Amazon Watch, Sacred Headwaters Initiative, Nia Tero, ICCA Consortium, Planȇte Amazone, Earth Law Centre, Selvagem, Cultural Survival, Arcus Foundation, IFIP, InsightShare and more!

Outcomes to celebrate

As the only international conservation forum that brings governments, civil society and indigenous peoples’ organisations to the same table, the IUCN Members’ Assembly carries a powerful mandate. Members vote to approve motions, and once adopted, they become Resolutions and Recommendations, and therefore the body of IUCN’s general policy.

Here are some of the key outcomes of this year’s congress:

• Increased recognition of the important role of Indigenous Peoples & local communities, to sustainably manage and utilise wild resources.
• Establishing an elected Indigenous Councillor.
• Vote passed to develop and implement a transformational and effective post-2020 global biodiversity framework. Now all eyes are on the UN Biodiversity COP15 in Kunming, China, in October for the framework’s review.
• Vote passed to protect the Lower Congo River from large hydroelectric dam developments. Large dams have already displaced around 80 million people and compromised the livelihoods of 472 million more
• Election of Razan Al Mubarak, the second woman to lead the IUCN in its 72-year history and the first female president from Asia
• The majority of governments, NGOs & civil society groups voted in favour of a moratorium on deep-sea mining, which will put pressure on the International Seabed Authority to strictly regulate it going forward.
• Overwhelming support for a global pact to protect 80% of the Amazon by 2025 (however, Brazil is not an IUCN member & experts fear Bolsonaro won’t comply.)

Highlights from the Reimagine Pavilion

A Living Invitation to Respond
Three Indigenous representatives posed important questions to cross-sector individuals – including model and environmental activist, Lily Cole, and founder of Treesisters, Clare Dubois – creating a necessary space to explore complex relationships and allow dialogue to emerge.

Listening Session
Tom B.K. Goldtooth (Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network) and Mindahi Bastida (Director of Original Nations Program at The Fountain) took the floor to speak candidly to the new IUCN President, Razan al Mubarak, and Chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, Jon-Paul Rodriguez.

“Indigenous peoples are complex and diverse…we have different perspectives and different points of view that we are still trying to figure out collectively as we go through a process of decolonisation.”

Tom B.K. Goldtooth

Authenticity to Nature: Aligning conservation with the principles that sustain life
A discussion to reimagine how culture-centred conservation can re-establish a flourishing of biological and cultural diversity between the Director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Mechtild Rossler, and anthropologist and Flourishing Diversity co-founder, Jerome Lewis.

Case Studies Sessions
In total across the six days, ten case study presentations shone a light on different cultural practices and traditions and the ways they successfully protect and enhance the ecosystems they form a part of. One of these was a case study focused on the Idu Mishmi community in India, and the deep physical and cosmological relationship they have with their landscape. Read this case study and discover more from across the world.