As our Co-Executive Director (Programmes & Engagement) Helen Tugendhat returns from Abu Dhabi, having spent a week with a small delegation from Synchronicity Earth’s team and many of our partners at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress, she reflects on the discussions, meetings, and motions that shaped this event.
Every four years, the IUCN convenes a World Conservation Congress which gathers thousands of people together to share, network, debate, and advance work on the conservation of nature.
This year, held in Abu Dhabi as the birthplace of the current President of the Union, Razan Al Mubarak, the Congress saw over 10,000 people engaging across the two parts of the Congress – the Forum (an open space for exchange and debate between anyone who registers to attend) and the Member’s Assembly (where members of the Union debate and approve policy and programming for IUCN- see our explainer for more information).
Félix Feider and Helen Tugendhat at the IUCN Members’ Assembly. Image © Geanie Cresswell/Synchronicity Earth
Meeting our partners
From Synchronicity Earth, we saw a huge level of engagement by partners of ours who we fund across a wide diversity of our programmes. As a relative newcomer to Synchronicity Earth, the opportunity to meet so many of our partners at the same time was a real gift. You can read here some of their bios, but there were many more partners besides those listed.
A shout out particularly to GreenViet and the Royal Society for the Protection of Nature, two of our longest-standing partners in the Asian Species Programme, who I met for the first time. Sophie Grange-Chamfray, who leads much of our work in the Congo Basin, attended to engage with our DRC-based associates and partners (with a special shout-out to our Congo Basin affiliates Bihini Won wa Musiti Jean and Merline Touko Tchoko, who were active participants across both the Forum and the Assembly).
Sophie Grange-Chamfray and Bihini Won wa Musiti Jean from our Congo Basin team (right) with Patrick Saidi Hemedi (DGPA) and Claude Monghiemo (MMT). Image © Geanie Cresswell/Synchronicity Earth
The Reimagining Conservation Pavilion
Being a huge believer in collaboration, I was thrilled that Synchronicity Earth was part of the Reimagining Conservation Pavilion, a space in the Forum that provided four fantastic days of programming with voices and experiences from around the world.
Themed days included confronting historical injustice, transforming financing for conservation, and understanding our responsibilities to the more-than-human world (among many more).
Working with ICCA Consortium, Maliasili, the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI), the IUCN Commission on Economic, Environmental and Social Policy (CEESP), Arcus Foundation, the Forest Peoples Programme, Conservation Data Justice (Condjust), and the International Institute for Environment and Development was such a pleasure. The Pavilion was the result of months of careful preparation, and despite some disruptive technical difficulties (the internet knocked out on the (very long) first day!), the camaraderie between our colleagues in the partner organisations meant we were more resilient than we might have been (with somewhat less swearing!).
The Reimagining Conservation Pavilion held dialogues, workshops, panels, and open mic sessions. Image © Geanie Cresswell/Synchronicity Earth
Resourcing transformation
We take seriously our responsibility as a funder to engage in critical conversations about how funding and finance impact (or enhance) conservation.
We convened a day of programming (with CCI and Maliasili) on ‘Resourcing Transformation’ in the Pavilion to speak just to these issues: looking at the investments that communities make, the global economic forces that continue to stretch and impact on the natural world, and the ways in which different funding mechanisms respond to the challenge of engaging with human rights effectively.
Moderating a panel on ‘funding justice … justly’ gave us a chance to highlight the multiple ways in which financing needs to address human rights, with huge appreciation to our panellists Naomi Lanoi Leleto, June Rubis, Katy Scholfield, Silke Spohn, Sahil Nijhawan, Daniel Kobei, and José Montiero.
The panellists for ‘Funding justice … justly’, from left to right: Sahil Nijhawan, Katy Scholfield, Silke Spohn, June Rubis, Helen Tugendhat, Naomi Lanoi Leleto, and Jibi Pulu. Image © Helen Tugendhat
We also convened and participated in both private and public meetings between conservation philanthropies including Arcadia, Arcus Foundation, and the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund. I have attended IUCN World Conservation Congresses since the 2004 Congress in Bangkok, but I have never before attended as a funder, and these new perspectives were for me some of the most fascinating discussions I was involved in.
Award announcements
Our Co-Founder Jessica Sweidan was presented with the IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy (CEESP) Reimagining Conservation award for boldly challenging traditional conservation models and helping shape inclusive, transformative approaches centred on human rights, cultural values, and ecological integrity. Image © Geanie Cresswell/Synchronicity Earth
You can’t mention a World Conservation Congress without talking about awards. Being a Union which relies on huge amounts of gifted and volunteer time, IUCN is excellent at recognising those who give so much of their energies and efforts. Specific to Synchronicity Earth, we were delighted to watch Dr Simon Stuart (Trustee and Chief Scientific Adviser) receive the Harold Jefferson Coolidge Medal, and Jessica Sweidan (Co-Founder and Trustee) receive the CEESP Reimagining Conservation Award.
After four years spent serving the World Commission on Protested Areas (WCPA) Steering Committee, I helped host the IUCN WCPA Awards Ceremony and found the recognition of decades of hard work in that ceremony emotional. I was thrilled to see my Commission Chair Dr Madhu Rao re-elected to serve another four-year term.
Kristina Gjerde launching the Ocean Stewardship Award to recognise early-career marine conservationists. Image © Geanie Cresswell/Synchronicity Earth
We were delighted to support the launch of the Ocean Stewardship Award, by one of our long-term partners in the Ocean Programme, Kristina Gjerde. The award will continue her legacy of advocating for the often out-of-sight, out-of-mind marine ecosystems such as the high and deep seas by recognising early-career conservationists.
The Congress also saw the announcements of the first-ever winners of the Accelerator Award, a new initiative we are supporting led by IUCN’s Reverse the Red to recognise and boost individuals and organisations working to strategically downlist a species’ threatened conservation status.
Addressing conservation’s history
Panel discussion on decolonising conservation in Africa, translated by Sophie Grange-Chamfray, featuring speakers Patrick Saidi Hemedi, Makko John Sinandei, Rodgers Lubilo, and Epanda Aime. Image © Geanie Cresswell/Synchronicity Earth
This Congress also saw a renewed focus on addressing some of the historic harms caused by old-fashioned or traditional forms of conservation, including the establishment of Protected Areas in lands traditionally owned by Indigenous Peoples, or by local communities under custom.
Speaking on a panel convened to discuss what IUCN is doing to renounce the Doctrine of Discovery meant linking global policy work on historic injustices with site and ground level work to address ongoing legacies.
Freshwater focus
Sheherazade (Shera), Co-Executive Director of PROGRES Sulawesi, a partner of both Synchronicity Earth and SHOAL, playing a fishing game in Shoal’s booth to win a prize. Image © Mike Baltzer/SHOAL
Synchronicity Earth hosts a sister organisation, SHOAL, which works to protect and restore freshwater fishes. The SHOAL team all came to this Congress and used the opportunity to discuss their ongoing strategy, build new relationships, and establish support for Resolutions in the Members Assembly to support their ongoing work. They also gave away stunning pieces of artwork by Georgie Bull, beautifully drawing attention to rare and endangered fish.
Synchronicity Earth’s own Freshwater Programme, which aligns with the SHOAL team very closely, was also represented through Félix Feider, who convened a roundtable with funders and partners to review our work in those complex and dispersed ecosystems.
Georgie Bull (left) showing visitors SHOAL’s Priority Fishes with her illustrations. Image © Georgie Bull/SHOAL
Members’ Assembly
Finally, after all this, came the Members’ Assembly where all member organisations of the Union vote to progress policy through ‘motions’, which – when adopted – become either Resolutions (binding on the Union itself) or Recommendations (formal statements to other actors).
The Synchronicity Earth team was following many (many) motions, and we joined perhaps 20 different contact groups (smaller negotiations to finalise text) tracking issues related to freshwater, protected area targets, and the development and use of synthetic biology in conservation. We also championed a late motion related to the use of Artificial Intelligence and another on recognising the crime of Ecocide.
Indeed, the breadth and complexity of the motions followed by the team highlights the diversity of the work that Synchronicity Earth and our partners are involved in.
Eight days is a long time to spend in one conference venue but with the scale of the challenges for biodiversity protection and care for nature, it felt like a creative and positive space in which we could discuss solutions and next steps. I was beyond proud to see the active and involved engagement by Synchronicity Earth staff (Sophie, Felix, and Geanie Cresswell – photographer extraordinaire), and by the engaged support of our Board members who were present (Catherine Bryan, Adam and Jessica Sweidan, and our newest trustee, Simon Stuart).
Find out more about the partners who attended the IUCN World Conservation Congress alongside our team.
Supporting our partners to attend and speak at important events in the environmental sector is a key piece of our Capacity strand – find out why we believe it’s important for funders to provide event support beyond grantmaking.
