The IUCN Council plays a crucial role within IUCN, and it has the potential to play a wider role than it does outside of IUCN.

In order to best prepare IUCN and its Council to increase their impact, we need to start by working along the following three fronts.

John’s Priorities for the IUCN Council

  • RETHINK THE ROLE OF IUCN

    EVOLUTION, NOT REVOLUTION

    IUCN must continue to grow into the role of convener of the global environmental community, and establish itself as the voice and conscience of the conservation sector, its consensus-builder, and its natural representative before the policy world and the private sector. This may involve drawing brighter lines between what IUCN does and what its members do, and possibly reducing the focus on some of IUCN’s current activities. But this should be an evolutionary process, not a revolution, and should be done in a manner that minimizes any negative impacts on IUCN member organizations, commissions, staff members, and other stakeholders.

  • INCREASE FUNDING FOR NATURE

    CLOSING THE BIODIVERSITY FINANCING GAP

    The global biodiversity financing gap is massive, and the environmental sector, even with the support of forward-thinking governments and philanthropists, will not be able to close it alone. IUCN should more proactively reach out to the policy sector and to the leading actors in the global economy, particularly the finance sector, to ensure not only that governments and philanthropies increase their commitments to nature but that private-sector economic activity (and private, return-seeking capital) become a force that ensures long-term nature-positive outcomes. We owe this, and more, to our natural heritage.

  • PRIORITIZE COMMUNICATIONS

    MORE AND BETTER INFORMATION FOR ALL

    Central to addressing the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change will be an increase in the quantity—and the quality—of our collective communications. To the extent the environmental sector has failed in some of its key objectives, many of those failures can be traced back to failures in communication. A new tone and a more modern approach are needed if we are to increase our global impact. And, on the internal front, IUCN members need to feel that their relationship with IUCN is more balanced, more mutualistic, and that IUCN’s communications to its members are not only about how members can support IUCN but about how IUCN can help its members.

And what are some of the practical implications that emerge from John’s priorities for the IUCN Council?

1) Rethink the role of IUCN - Evolution, not revolution

  • One thing that never changes is that the fact that the world is constantly changing. Successful organizations must then ask themselves constantly whether their roles need to evolve and whether their organizations are occupying the optimal niche for their organization.

  • IUCN, of course, is the meta-organization of environmental NGOs (in addition to governments), and I believe it should assume that role more visibly and more publicly.

  • IUCN needs to ask itself whether it should be prioritizing its role as convener of the environmental world, as the conscience and the unified voice of the environmental community, as the single face of the community when a single voice is needed (in international policy initiatives, for example).

  • This could, in turn, lead to a gradual decrease in IUCN’s role in project management and implementation, in leading specific initiatives, and other similar activities. IUCN needs to decide whether, given the environmental landscape globally, it should become more of a facilitator for its members’ activities.

2) Increase funding for Nature - Closing the biodiversity financing gap

  • Limits on the amount of funding available from national governments, the philanthropic sector, multilateral organizations, and others have led environmentalists to explore other funding sources and develop new financing mechanisms for tapping into this new capital, much of which lies in the private sector.

  • After a slow start, the past decade has seen a dramatic shift in how the environmental sector views the opportunities for interacting with, and in some cases collaborating with, the private sector.

  • The learning has been slow, the inability to communicate across sectors has been stifling, and successes have come only after much commitment and hard work. But no one ever said that collaborating with the private sector was going to be a quick-and-easy success story.

  • The jury is still out on the notion that private capital could be an important long-term source of funding for conservation, and not just as the cause of much biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions. But until we know definitively whether or not business in the future will, on average, become a force for good—rather than the source of much environmental and social harm—we must continue to work with the private sector to try to influence the way business does business.

3) Prioritize communications - More information within and outside IUCN

  • For decades now, the environmental community has been reminding the world of all the damage that our species—and in particular population increase coupled with economic growth—has caused to our biosphere and to our atmosphere. While our incessant repetition of the same ‘gloom and doom’ statistics may have served a purpose at some time, when we still needed to raise awareness, today all who could hear our lamentations have heard them already, and we are preaching to the converted. Meanwhile, the rest of society has become desensitized to our communications.

  • The good news is that there are better ways to communicate the need for change. But the environmental sector will have to incorporate recent research, clever tactics, and appealing stories into our narrative in order to cut through the thick crust of cynicism and apathy that are so common in society.

  • It is time to refresh our approach, focusing on the positive, the new, and the ‘cool’ side of environmental conservation and sustainability, highlight innovation, and get people—especially the young—excited rather than depressed. With more modern tools, more personal stories, and more emphasis of all the good that science and technology can deliver for us and for nature, we need to work to bring in those who have been left behind by our traditional approach to communications. It is time for a new approach to communicating the importance of biodiversity to the world, and no organization is in a better position than IUCN to lead this charge.

  • On the internal front, we need to address the perception among some IUCN members that IUCN’s communications to the members are too often about how members can help IUCN, rather than about how IUCN can help the members. Whether this perception is correct or not is not the point—it exists among some parts of the membership, and should be addressed. We need to find the right balance, and in doing so to foster the conviction among the members that the relationship between IUCN and its members creates real value for all involved.