Biodiversity, meaning the range of variation in life on earth, is at the centre of IUCN's work, though in the past the Union has addressed it more through component parts, such as species and ecosystems, than as an integrated issue.
In mid-1993, IUCN established an expanded Biodiversity Programme. This grew out of the joint work with the World Resources Institute and UNEP to prepare the 1992 Global Biodiversity Strategy. The aim of the Programme is to help countries design the policies and build the institutions they need to conserve biodiversity and to implement the Convention on Biological Diversity, which came into force on 29 December 1993.
One focus of the Programme is on the economics of biodiversity, a theme of great importance in the Convention but neglected by many conservation groups.
The Programme will also emphasize the link between cultural and natural biodiversity, showing how local knowledge is vital in using and conserving natural resources. At the delivery end, it will boost IUCN's work in helping training courses: in 1993 the Chief Biodiversity Officer contributed to over 12 such courses around the world. Two highlights stand out. First, the Programme established a Global Biodiversity Forum, which met in October 1993. The Forum brings people from all sectors together on neutral ground, so they can consider and debate the complicated issues in the Convention. IUCN hopes that the Forum may help develop informal, multiple solutions to the issues involved through partnerships between all the various interest groups.
Second, the Environmental Law Centre, working with the Biodiversity Programme, has prepared the draft of an explanatory guide to the Convention. The guide explains what the text of the Convention means, article by article, provides background information on the complex issues involved, and considers the implications for national action.
While the Biodiversity Programme addresses the broad picture, mainly at policy level, IUCN contributes to the nuts and bolts of biodiversity conservation through other programmes. Among the largest is the Species Conservation Programme, which provides expertise from over 5,000 volunteer experts in the network of the Species Survival Commission (SSC). Most of the volunteers serve on one or more of over 100 SSC Specialist Groups, each of which covers a group of plants or animals. But there are also six inter-disciplinary groups; for example, one is on captive breeding, another on the problem of invasive species.
The Commission prepares Action Plans for the threatened species in each of these groups of animals and plants. In 1993, Action Plans were published on zebras and wild horses, on seals, on old world fruit bats and on pigs, peccaries and hippos. This brings the total to 25 Plans so far, all on animal groups. A new edition of The IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals was also brought to completion during the year.
The Specialist Groups vary in their capacity to implement their Action Plans, but the growing trend is for them to look beyond just networking and outlining what needs to be done to ensure that action happens on the ground. In 1993, SSC raised funds to allow both the Asian and the African Rhino Specialist Groups to hire Executive Officers. Thanks to a large anonymous donation, the Marine Turtle Specialist Group will soon have a Secretariat. And to raise even more funds, an SSC Special Support Council has been formed.
Plants had been neglected in recent years, but in 1993 a Plants Officer at last joined the Species Conservation Unit at Headquarters. A Plant Conservation Task Force met in November to consider how to develop IUCN's work on plants, which was one of its stronger themes in the past. Also in 1993, IUCN published, in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO) and WWF, Guidelines on the Conservation of Medicinal Plants. With WHO as one of the authors, these guidelines provide a powerful lever to draw Ministries of Health into the conservation of plants, especially those needed for primary health care.
As before, a major part of the work is helping to implement the complicated Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Under the Significant Trade Project, SSC and the World Conservation Monitoring Centre have reviewed all animal species listed on the CITES Appendices thought to be in danger of harmful trade and made recommendations to the CITES Animals Committee. The Programme prepared for the CITES Secretariat a major report that proposes new criteria for listing species on the Convention. IUCN is also a joint partner, with WWF, in TRAFFIC, an international operation to monitor trade in plants and animals. Like IUCN, TRAFFIC works through a decentralized network around the world, with five Regional Offices, four National Offices, and National Representatives in a further five countries. In 1993, TRAFFIC prepared its own strategic plan, now being considered by a joint IUCN and WWF working group.
The Sustainable Use of Wildlife Programme is closely associated with the Species Conservation Programme and the TRAFFIC operation. In 1993 it continued to develop the text of its guidelines for sustainable use of wild species. It also works closely with IUCN members and with Regional and Country Offices to enable them to respond to issues on sustainable use of wild species. In Chile, for example, the Programme helped the Government prepare a management plan for the sustainable use of vicuna fibre, working with the Aymara people who live alongside the vicuna. Much work has been done to develop proposals for similar projects around the world, notably in Mali, Niger, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Laos and the Philippines.
The Programme can also help with species traded under CITES. The CITES Secretariat had identified Indonesia, Guyana and Senegal as having serious problems in controlling the harvest of certain species. Each of the three Governments asked for lUCN's help--for example by field surveys and consultative workshops. The Programme works to increase the capacity of governments to tackle such problems and works with them to ensure such harvests are sustainable.
Establishing and managing protected areas is one of the most important ways of conserving biodiversity. To encourage and support this, IUCN has a long-established Protected Areas Programme, which works closely with the Species Conservation and Biodiversity Programmes. This Programme is led by the Commission on National Parks and Protected Areas (CNPPA), and supported by the staff of the Protected Areas Unit at Headquarters.
A priority for 1993 was to make available the results of the very successful World Parks Congress held in 1992. A short and easily readable book of proceedings was published, entitled Parks for Life, which includes the Caracas Action Plan, the Recommendations of the Congress and summaries of the 49 different Workshops held. Four other books arising from the Congress were published or are in press, and further titles are in preparation.
The Caracas Action Plan, developed at the Congress, calls for the preparation of Regional Action Plans as the best way to identify what needs to be done on the ground. In 1993, in addition to the plan for Europe (described later), the team started a Regional Action Plan for East Asia, which was discussed at a CNPPA meeting of over 260 participants in China in September, and also made preparations for Action Plans in South Asia and South East Asia. The work takes time, as the Programme believes in extensive consultation, so that participants feel they "own" the Action Plan and are committed to its goals.
The Programme has long argued for more and better marine protected areas, since conservation at sea has lagged far behind action on land. CNPPA is preparing a report for the World Bank identifying priority areas for conservation of marine biodiversity. Under a parallel initiative on mountains, CNPPA co-sponsored four regional meetings--in Kenya, Puerto Rico, New Zealand and the Czech Republic.
Another part of the work on protected areas is the Natural Heritage Programme, under which IUCN provides an independent evaluation of all the natural sites proposed by governments for protection under the World Heritage Convention. Due to the power and simplicity of this Convention, inscription on the World Heritage List provides a high degree of protection. IUCN's job is to make sure the List is restricted to truly outstanding areas and that sites have the fullest possible protection before being accorded World Heritage status.
Following IUCN field evaluations of 14 sites during the year, the World Heritage Committee accepted four large new sites onto the World Heritage List. These sites, from Japan, Mexico and the Philippines, total an impressive 616,000 hectares and were the subject of intense conservation debate. Their addition to the World Heritage List is the culmination of long campaigns.
The Natural Heritage Programme also helped establish several large new protected areas that may later become World Heritage Sites. Following a detailed proposal by IUCN last year, the Prime Minister of Pakistan agreed to designate a 300,000 hectare national park in the Karakorum Mountains--a sparsely inhabited area that includes K2, the world's second highest peak. In Canada, the Premier of British Columbia accepted a recommendation from the last IUCN General Assembly that the entire Tatshenshini-Alsek region be protected and nominated as a World Heritage Site. If granted World Heritage status, the million-hectare park will join four other national parks in the U.S. and Canada's Yukon to become the largest treaty-protected site on earth, covering an area larger than Costa Rica.
An important part of IUCN's capacity for sharing and exchanging information is the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, based in Cambridge, UK. The Centre, which is run as a partnership between IUCN, UNEP and WWF, maintains databases on habitats, threatened species, protected areas and wildlife trade. It provides a wide range of services to the Union; for example the IUCN Red Lists and Red Data Books, the Protected Area lists and directories, and a number of habitat atlases are compiled at the Centre. In 1993, the Centre started a process of strategic planning and also moved into a new building, which will greatly improve its ability to provide an effective service.
Ecosystems
The programmes on topics like species and protected areas are matched by programmes on specific ecosystems--forests, wetlands, and marine and coastal areas. The aim is to promote effective conservation and sustainable use of these ecosystems, both within protected areas and as part of the wider environment. Each establishes model field projects, usually with IUCN members, and uses the lessons learnt from these to develop general guidance on policy and management.
IUCN's long-standing Forest Conservation Programme remained active at the international policy level. The Union called for the International Tropical Timber Agreement, currently being renegotiated, to be broadened in scope and to be extended to temperate forests. IUCN argued that developed countries should not impose standards on developing countries that they do not accept for their own forests. The same line was taken in IUCN's joint submission with WWF to the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe. The double standards on forestry in Europe and North America are increasingly undermining forest conservation efforts around the world--North and South.
The Programme has also been evaluating its field projects, both to see what can be learnt from each on forest policy and to ensure that they are clearly targeted with well-defined goals. This year also saw publication of guidelines on the collection of non-timber products from the forest and on the promising concept of extractive reserves, following two workshops on this theme in the previous year.
The Wetlands Programme had a year of change and consolidation as it built on the recommendations from its mid-term review, conducted in 1992. The Programme is large and diverse: the core is a set of field projects in over 30 countries, most managed by wetland experts in the IUCN Regional and Country Offices.
In 1993, the Programme recruited a technical adviser in West Africa, who is supervising field projects for the Senegal Delta. A national wetland conference was held in Burkino Faso and an expert group set up for rivers and floodplains in the Sahel. In Asia, working with members and partners, the Programme organized national wetland workshops in Nepal and Vietnam, to produce Wetland Action Plans, and provided training on mangrove management in Vietnam. The Wetlands Programme Advisory Committee set up an expert group for European wetlands, to bring together scientists, conservationists and other experts, and to strengthen the links between East and West.
The 1992 review argued that the Programme should do more to draw out the lessons of its many field projects; to this end, a freshwater management adviser was recruited to the Headquarters staff. Publications are a vital part of this process: a further eight titles were added to the Wetlands Conservation Series this year, and two issues of the popular newsletter were completed: this is now sent to around 2000 members and partners.
During 1992, IUCN's Marine and Coastal Programme was reviewed by an external panel. The resulting report suggested that the main focus of the Programme should be to promote Integrated Coastal Zone Management, already an important and growing part of the work. The Programme has now prepared guidelines on this and continues to work with the regional programmes in designing and promoting a set of projects, in particular for Eastern and Southern Africa, for Central America and for the Mediterranean.
The Panel also recommended that the other main thrust of the Programme's work should be to help ensure that the use of marine resources is sustainable. In cooperation with the Kenya Marine Fisheries Association, the Programme held an international workshop on marine ecosystems and fisheries of the Western Indian Ocean, and is planning similar meetings for other fisheries.
A further recommendation was to give more cohesion to the network and to make sure that lessons learnt reach those on the ground. To achieve this, the first two issues of a Programme newsletter were published and the publication series was boosted; there are now 15 titles in print and a further seven are nearing completion.
Delivering vital services
Although all programmes in IUCN have a strong service role, five programmes in particular cut across traditional boundaries and are defined more by function and method than by region or theme. In 1992, the Director General brought these programmes together as a new Services Division of the Secretariat, with a new Director, and in 1993 appointed Coordinators for three of them. The new team is working to knit the Services together, and to develop a common approach. This is an important step for IUCN, which has tended to have strong theme and regional programmes, but has been less effective at integrating them together into a coherent whole.
At the core of the new Division is the Strategies for Sustainability Service, which is closely associated with the working group of that name in the Commission on Environmental Strategy and Planning (CESP). This Service is continuing and expanding IUCN's work in helping countries develop various forms of strategies, including National Conservation Strategies (NCSs).
To learn from the many strategies done so far and to plough the lessons learnt back into the field, the Strategies Service and CESP have established networks of practitioners in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Each of these networks has now met twice and has worked with the Service to prepare regional reviews of 30 different strategies.
Based on this experience, the Service and its networks are preparing a set of 12 guides on how to develop a strategy; three of them--on local and national approaches, and on monitoring and evaluation--are already in draft form. Also as part of this series, the World Resources Institute, IUCN and UNEP arc preparing a guide on how countries can implement the Article in the Convention on Biological Diversity which requires each State to develop a biodiversity strategy. By providing vital know-how and drawing on real experience, these guides provide valuable help to Union members.
IUCN's Environmental Assessment (EA) Service provides technical assistance to those commissioning or actually doing EAs. It can help define the scope of an EA and can seek out specialist expertise. Once a report is drafted, it can review the draft, to ensure that the report follows best available practice. And once the final report has been prepared, the Service can help all participants use it properly in their decision-making. During 1993, the Service helped with 20 such cases, for example preparing terms of reference for an EA on a proposed natural gas plant on the coast of Oman. Occasionally, the Service undertakes full EA studies itself--one example in 1993 assessed the environmental impact of government policies in Zambia to mitigate the devastating effects of the drought there earlier in the year.
The Service also strengthens national systems for Environmental Assessment, so that countries are less dependent on outside aid and expertise. Specialized training courses are provided to meet specific needs; for example, in 1993 a course was organized in Guatemala on how to develop EA practices. Increasingly, the Service is designing long-term, integrated programmes to build capacity, such as by preparing guidelines and by raising the awareness of senior government officials. National programmes of this kind are already underway in Nepal, Pakistan and Zambia.
The Environmental Law Service is part of the Union's long-standing Environmental Law Programme. The Law Programme is a joint effort between the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law and the Environmental Law Centre, based at Bonn, Germany. The Commission's volunteer network and the Centre's staff collaborate with partners all over the world in developing national and international law, sharing experience and exchanging information. In 1993, the Law Programme also helped with seminars and workshops in Bahrain, Chile, Costa Rica, Kenya and Tunisia. It gave fellowships to bring lawyers to Germany from Fiji, Mauritania and Zimbabwe. It also maintains the Environmental Law Information System (ELIS), which is one of the most comprehensive collections of material on environmental law in the world with over 115,000 citations.
The Environmental Law Service itself helps developing countries review and develop environmental legislation. The Service tries to encourage countries to pass laws that are realistic, matching the needs and capacity of the country and reflecting its culture and economic circumstances. To achieve this, the Service uses expertise from within the country, only using experts from outside to provide international and comparative experience.
Over the last three years, the Service has worked in more than 20 countries. During 1993, it completed reviews of environmental legislation in Argentina, Lebanon, and five countries of the South Pacific, and helped lawyers in Uganda draft an Environmental Protection Bill. It assisted legal initiatives in Botswana, Guinea-Bissau, Jordan, Mauritania, Mozambique, Pakistan, Romania, Solomon Islands and Syria--a diverse array of countries, each with particular needs for better environmental law.
Social Policy is one of the youngest IUCN Services. In 1993 it has been putting into effect the results of a review the previous year. This identified a new $3 focus for its activities, bringing social needs and concerns into the practice of conservation and development, especially at community level. It will do this mainly through projects of IUCN and its partners, in particular helping communities to ensure that the conservation work done meets local needs and approval.
At country level, the Programme prepared the proceedings of a national symposium in Bangladesh, examining linkages between population, environment and development, as part of the NCS approach. It helped Sri Lanka to enhance community participation in forestry and protected area management. And in Southern Africa it helped develop a training programme for extension workers on community decision-making.
An Indigenous People's Task Force met twice during the year. It reviewed a set of case studies on how indigenous groups manage natural resources and captured the lessons in a guide on how indigenous people can participate in strategic development.
The Environmental Education Service works closely with the Commission on Education and Communication (CEC). Drawing on the wealth of experience available, meetings of CEC networks in Asia and Europe reviewed the draft guide on strategic planning in education prepared the previous year. The Commission itself has regional networks of practitioners in environmental education. A meeting in India in February launched the Asian network, and in South America, a network of educators is coming together. A workshop in August brought together educators from IUCN's projects around the world--IUCN's field work provides some of the richest examples of effective formal and informal environmental education achievements.
Although also a service, Communications is a Division in its own right and was renamed Communications and Corporate Relations Division earlier in the year. The Division provides a range of services to Programmes, such as media relations, supervising the production and distribution of publications, and coordinating communications work at the regional level.
The Union's publications continued to increase, as shown by the many new titles listed on page 30. In particular, during 1993 three more titles were published in the illustrated atlas series in association with Mitchell Beazley--Wetlands, Deserts and the popular version of Caring for the Earth with the new sub-title "A Strategy for Survival." This is a condensation and partial rewriting of the original text, to make it more accessible to the average reader. Revenues from commercial sale of publications again reached a new high, while the vitally important free distribution programme (to institutions and individuals in developing countries) was maintained.
As well as producing the quarterly Bulletin and Interact, the Communications Division also started a new Focus series--short, provocative statements on issues of topical conservation interest--and expanded the concept of Resource Files and information leaflets on individual programmes. A Media and Information Relations Officer, appointed during the year, held two journalists' seminars at Headquarters.
The IUCN Library is creating a Conservation Information Network around IUCN's activities. Beyond providing access to basic bibliographic services--to be made available to all members on-line or on disk in due course-the Library is also linking into global electronic networks and establishing document and publications management capacity in Regional Offices.
In November 1993, the Communications Division convened a workshop that refined the idea of Communications Planning Frameworks, a process to help IUCN Programmes improve their overall effectiveness by clearer strategic thinking on communications.
Working in the Regions
As IUCN's Programme has grown in scope so too has the challenge of targeting it effectively at the needs of the members. To achieve this, and to take account of the variation in need and opportunity between different parts of the world, IUCN has given increasing attention to drawing up its Programme on a regional basis. In turn, the need to pursue the Programme effectively and at lower cost has led to a major decentralization of the Secretariat to Regional and Country Offices. The emphasis of the regional programmes and the decentralized Secretariat is upon partnership with the members--to make them stronger and more effective as institu
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