Story | 19 Mar, 2018
Dr Nguyen Ba Thu, a long-serving Vietnamese champion for protected areas and nature conservation and IUCN supporter, sadly passed away on 13 March 2018. Dr Nguyen Ba Thu was the former Director of Cúc Phương National Park, Viet Nam’s first official protected area, and former Director of the Viet…
Story | 14 Feb, 2018
Azerbaijan to create the first Marine Protected Area in the Caspian Sea
Azerbaijan is upgrading and expanding the Gizilaghaj State Reserve to become a National Park and will include the first Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the Caspian Sea, the largest inland body of water on the planet. The new MPA will seek to protect six significant marine species on the brink of…
Story | 16 Jan, 2018
MOOCs and protected areas capacity building – where we stand
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are now an undeniable part of the education landscape. Their development really started to take off in 2012 and there are now over 7,000 of them mainly from European and North American universities. MOOCs are a revolutionary opportunity for everyone across the…
Story | 11 Dec, 2017
Participatory scenario planning
By Ignacio Palomo
How can we manage a large protected area system with reduced public funding resources and new challenges arising from multiple drivers of change? This was the question that EUROPARC Spain, an institution that mobilises multiple stakeholders around protected areas in…
Story | 28 Nov, 2017
Celebrating the third anniversary of the Promise of Sydney
On 13 November 2017, coinciding with the third anniversary of the IUCN World Parks Congress 2014, IUCN and the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) concluded a new partnership agreement that will contribute significantly to delivering the Promise of Sydney. Following many years…
Story | 27 Nov, 2017
Incubator for Nature Conservation at COP23
IUCN launched the pilot phase of its new initiative, the Incubator for Nature Conservation (INC) at UNFCCC COP23 in Bonn. INC seeks to answer the question: can a protected area also be a good business? Representatives from the Green Climate Fund, Mirova-Althelia, Ecosphere+, the Peru Ministry…
Story | 21 Nov, 2017
IUCN prepares for a new wave of ‘Green List’ conservation success
On the third anniversary of the IUCN World Parks Congress 2014 and the ‘Promise of Sydney’ commitments, the IUCN Green List of Protected and Conserved Areas (the IUCN Green List) has achieved an important milestone. The IUCN Council – the principal governing body for the Union – has formally…
Story | 31 Oct, 2017
A major enhancement of protection in Iceland
After many years of lobbying by Icelandic and international experts from WCPA, the Icelandic Minister for Environment and Natural Resources, Björt Ólafsdóttir has just announced the enhanced protection status of one of the most important ice caps and adjacent wetland areas in the highlands of…
Story | 20 Oct, 2017
Two key publications from the IUCN WCPA Best Practice Protected Area Guidelines Series, Governance of Protected Areas, and Urban Protected Areas, have been translated into Portuguese, with the support of the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, the German Society for…