“The world is shifting beneath our feet with startling speed. Biodiversity loss has not been halted, and is converging with climate change, pollution, and inequality in ways never experienced before,” said H.E. IUCN President Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak. “And yet, I am filled with optimism, because I believe that IUCN has the capacity, the knowledge, and the collective will to rise to these complex challenges. We all know that conservation works and that nature can recover. By uniting behind this purpose, we can, and we will, accelerate that recovery.”
Unite for Nature on the path to 2045: A 20-year Strategic Vision for the Union sets out IUCN’s vision for “a just world that values and conserves nature”, while Nature 2030: One nature, one future. The IUCN Programme 2026-2029 defines the implementation plan.
“As we face the decades ahead, the scale of the challenge before us cannot be underestimated. We must transform our society, our food and energy systems - and our Union - to build lasting resilience to face the future. With this ambitious Vision and Programme, I know that IUCN is ready to drive the action needed to safeguard nature and with it our wellbeing, our livelihoods and our very identity,” said Dr Grethel Aguilar, IUCN Director General.
As a Union of around 1,500 Members, including States, governments, non-governmental organisations and Indigenous Peoples Organisations, over 18,000 experts in its Commissions, and more than 1,000 staff in its Secretariat, IUCN has a key role in pooling the world’s scientific and local knowledge and setting the global transformational conservation agenda.
The Strategic Vision outlines how IUCN is uniquely placed to collectively deliver change, through scaling up our existing work and addressing the drivers of biodiversity loss across eight transformational interconnected areas related to climate change; the energy transition; the economic and financial sectors: agriculture, water, health, cities and oceans.
The Programme provides a roadmap, along with accountable deliverables, to drive global conservation action over the next 4 years. With a local to global remit it will support on-the-ground impact through mobilising and directing resources to where they are needed, equipping frontline conservationists with the necessary capacity, knowledge and tools, enhancing collaboration by bringing key actors together, guiding and supporting local and global environmental policy and advancing nature-based education.
Through putting the Vision and Programme into action, IUCN renews it commitment and collective action to effectively conserve and restore biodiversity across all ecosystems, and set an example at national and international levels of how successful conservation can be positioned as the engine of inclusive and equitable sustainable development. Healthy ecosystems are also essential to mitigating and adapting to climate change, which IUCN further supports though implementing Nature-based Solutions to build ecosystem and societal resilience. Promoting the equitable, legitimate, legal and sustainable use of nature and natural resources is foundational to our work for both nature conservation and a just, equitable and sustainable society.
The Vision and Programme strengthen IUCN’s dedicated work towards conventions such as the Global Biodiversity Framework, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and future conservation-focused frameworks.
View the video of IUCN's 20-vision and four-year Programme.