Candidate info
Particular qualifications:
My work is rooted in the roots and future growth of IUCN - its founding principles of ethics, peace, and justice, and alongside foundational leaders like Ron Engel (founder Ethics Working Group), George Rabb (former SSC Chair), and WCEL Chairs Nick Robinson, Sheila Abed, and Antonio Benjamin. My NGO, Center for Environmental Ethics and Law, was founded to implement Res-20 (2004), Drafting a Code of Ethics for Biodiversity Conservation, advanced by Patrick Blandin (Comite francais). We created a methodology to raise the evidentiary value of the lived experience and address the gap between values and action (see Biosphere Ethics Initiative, adopted via Council and Res-4 (2012)). As Chair of the WCEL Ethics Specialist Group, and WCEL Member since 2005, I work locally, nationally, regionally, and internationally, across fields and sectors, and with Members and non-Members. In addition to work on decolonialism and inter-generational responsibility, the ESG is the only SG that explicitly addresses IUCN internal governance. With the USNC, I co-led the 2024 Annual Meeting, "Members at the Heart of IUCN" (and assisted NARO with the RCF), and am co-leading the first Strategic Plan, focusing on co-creation and co-ownership of our work, and strategic engagement with other regional and national committees. As ethics is Union-wide, I work Union-wide, often raising issues of Member concern to our leaders or at Congress, such as conflicts, accountability, access, transparency, and voice.
Experience in fields of concern to IUCN:
My CV is available to give evidence to my expertise, so here I will emphasize my approach at the intersection of my work and IUCN. I always focus on how best to advance the mission of IUCN – and the incredible power and potential of its history since 1948 – as an organization of justice and science, and for sustainability for the entire community of life. And broad, diverse representation is key, but with a shared purpose. This is particularly important as we face increased crises, whose harms are not equally caused nor equally felt, and particularly as we expand our engagement with actors or industries that have caused these crises. We are a big tent organization, but with a common mission, and we must defend our individual and collective legitimacy as actors for just conservation. I take very seriously the act of an NGO, government, or Indigenous Peoples organization signing their name to IUCN, and the obligations we then owe to IUCN, and the obligations that IUCN then owes to us.