Conservation Optimism and the IUCN Green List
These days, we hear a LOT of bad news about the environment:
We’re losing forests at a rate of 27 soccer fields per minute.
Up to 150 species are lost every day.
23% of natural habitats could be gone by 2100.
Just to name a few really not fun facts.
Given this context, looking at the planetary bright side of things may feel rather futile – naïve, even. Climate anxiety and grief is real and on the rise, especially amongst youth: in a climate-focused survey of young people in 10 countries, 75% said the future was frightening.
But as Newton once told us, every action has an equal opposite reaction. Enter: climate optimism.
Climate optimism means many things to many people, but comes down to a belief – a choice – in and for a better future. For action, for hope for our planet and its people. We have solutions at our fingertips, and climate optimism empowers those fighting with the conviction that, despite the current prognosis, a better world is possible.
A subset of climate optimism is conservation optimism. Conservation optimism likewise focuses on solutions and success stories – of regeneration, effective action, and human-nature coexistence. From successful conservation we can learn and grow, applying what works to protected areas, ecosystems, and species restoration all around the world.
Here enters today’s protagonist: the IUCN Green List.
The IUCN Green List is a global campaign for successful nature conservation – a standard that measures protected and conserved areas in both their environmental and community impacts. The standard is meant to both recognize effective, inclusive management and spread good practices around the globe. There are 4 components to the standard:
Good governance
Sound design and planning
Effective management
Successful conservation outcomes
Amongst the 4 components, there are 17 criteria, including aspects such as guaranteeing legitimacy and voice, designing for long-term conservation of major site values, managing within the social and economic context of the site, and demonstrating conservation of major natural values.
The Green List’s 4 components and 17 criteria
While not brand new (the list launched in late 2017), when I first learned about this initiative, I was immediately intrigued – this represented the exact intersection I hope to work in, and what I am looking to explore during this year of travel.
To learn more about this initiative, I head to the IUCN headquarters in Gland, Switzerland to meet with a member of the Green List team. To do so, however, I first have the complicated task of extricating myself from our Airbnb.
Why, you may ask, is this complicated? Due to our eccentric, loquacious host Hannah. We had arrived to Switzerland late last night given our evening flight from Sweden, so our host had left a key out for us to let ourselves in. As I am setting off for the IUCN, Hannah emerges from her room in a robe and slippers, ready for a proper introduction.
Jeremy and I quickly learn that she has quite a knack for the one-way conversation: over the course of 15 minutes, Jeremy and I both get in approximately 3 sentences, as she talks at us about the pizza place in town, her former job as a taxi driver, her loathing of Uber, the instructions she sent me on how to get into the apartment, the bus schedule, her upcoming trip to the U.S., and the subsequent questions she had for us to help in her planning. I get in a quick word about needing to head out to a meeting, at which point she sends me on my way.
With a renewed appreciation for our tent, I head out the door, grab an overpriced coffee (the rumors are true: Switzerland is pricy), and catch the bus just in time. Across my 2 buses, I get my first real look at Switzerland, and let me tell you – the rumors are true: Switzerland is BEAUTIFUL.
The IUCN Headquarters in Gland, Switzerland
I arrive to the IUCN a few minutes before my meeting and sit down in the reception area, browsing one of the multitudes of publications they have available for guests. Conservation for a New Era, Guidelines for Protected Area Management Categories, and The impact of IUCN Resolutions on international conservation efforts: an overview are just a few of the titles that catch my eye, as I geek out over so much conservation-related literature.
The Green List team member I am meeting breezes into the reception and introduces himself. I was admittedly quite nervous heading into this meeting as working at the IUCN is a dream job of mine, but his friendly, intelligent nature immediately puts me at ease. We walk through the cafeteria – I had emailed asking about a coffee chat, but given it is a balmy 93 degrees, I opt for a water chat instead.
We sit down outside in the shaded patio, and I share a brief background on my project, environmental work experience, and academic background. I learn more about the biology and policy background that led this team member to the IUCN, and then we dive into the topic at hand: the Green List.
As is only natural, I begin with the beginning: where did the idea for the Green List originate?
During the 2012 World Conservation Congress, the Congress adopted a resolution “to develop objective, transparent and repeatable criteria for Green Lists that systematically assess successful conservation of species and ecosystems, including in protected areas.” Following the resolution, much work was done to formulate and formalize the standard, including a global development and consultation process to create and test the standard.
“More generally, though,” the team member shares, “the movement came out of the need to recognize good work. With all of the news we hear about biodiversity loss and environmental destruction, we wanted to add to the narrative and change the crisis tone. Protected areas are our frontline defense. But currently, only 20-25% of them follow sound management practices. There is so much urgency, but we wanted to show that when things are done well, nature responds.”
During my visit, I also spent a couple hours at the IUCN HQ Library… and could’ve spent a couple days there. Too many books, too little time
This prompts my next question. “So, do you think the current number of Green Listed sites reflects that these are the only protected areas that are up to standard? Or is it due to the newness of the standard, or the need to ‘market’ it more?”
Currently, there are 61 Green Listed sites around the world – a few of which we are going to over the next year. While the 61 current sites are quite impressive, there are thousands of protected areas around the world not on this list.
“That’s a great question,” he starts. “I think it’s some combination of all of that. First of all, it’s a voluntary standard – and should be. It is not top down. A site should way ‘we want to implement good practices.’”
“Next, it takes time to spread the standard – and for sites to become Green Listed. A well-managed site would take 3-6 months at minimum to be approved for the Green List, with information gathering, stakeholder interviews, etc. Other sites can take multiple years if significant management practices need to change.”
“In the long-term, we also hope to grow the number of sites on the list. Currently, the list includes about 1% of all protected areas globally – though 10 times that number are interested or current candidates.”
Finally, I ask the team member a question I have been asking many throughout my journey: why does conservation matter? More broadly, and to you personally?
“For me, it comes down to a connection to and love of nature. I see that as spiritual… sacred. Humans are a part of nature, not meant to dominate it, and this relationship is what motivates me.”
