The IUCN World Conservation Congress closed in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, setting the vision for nature conservation for the next 20 years.

Members, including CNVP,  approved the 20-year Strategic Vision and a new programme for the next four-year period. Her Excellency Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak will serve a second term as the Union’s President alongside newly elected members of the IUCN Commissions and Council.

 Several high-impact announcements and pledges were unveiled to bolster global conservation efforts. The Abu Dhabi Action Plan calls on the global community to accelerate urgent and practical action across five key areas: reaffirming nature as the foundation of well-being, strengthening multilateralism, ensuring justice and inclusion, advancing knowledge and innovation, and scaling up resources for nature and climate action. It sets a collective vision for transformative change – uniting governments, communities, and sectors to achieve a just, resilient, and nature-positive future for people and the planet.

 IUCN welcomed over 100 new Members into its Union during the Congress – including six states Armenia, Tajikistan, Marshall Islands, Gabon, Tuvalu, and Zimbabwe. 

 Major scientific announcements included the latest update of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ which revealed growing threats to Arctic seals driven by climate change. Another assessment found nearly 100 additional wild bee species in Europe has been classified as threatened. IUCN also launched the 4^th World Heritage Outlook report which revealed that climate change threatens 43% of natural World Heritage sites. 

Source: IUCN