{"id":386694,"date":"2025-10-28T14:24:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T13:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iucn.nl\/?p=386694"},"modified":"2025-10-29T10:49:35","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T09:49:35","slug":"the-2025-world-conservation-congress-in-retrospect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iucn.nl\/en\/news\/the-2025-world-conservation-congress-in-retrospect\/","title":{"rendered":"The 2025 World Conservation Congress: in retrospect"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The 2025 IUCN World Conservation Congress saw over 10,000 people convening in Abu Dhabi, with nearly 150 motions adopted at the Member\u2019s Assembly. Here are some highlights from this year\u2019s Congress. <\/h4>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Header photo: at the event Empowering Grassroots Conservation through Trust-Based Funding, <\/strong>Networking, and Capacity Support, with IUCN NL’s Sander van Andel and Liliana Jauregui in the middle<\/mark><\/em>. \u00a9 IUCN NL<\/em><\/mark><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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The Congress addressed five interlinked themes: scaling up resilient conservation action, reducing climate overshoot risks, delivering on equity, transitioning to nature-positive economies and societies, and disruptive innovation and leadership for conservation. This year\u2019s theme was \u2018Powering transformative conservation\u2019. The Congress takes place every four years and is the largest marketplace for conservation and sustainable development science, practice and policy. Scientists, policy experts, business leaders and professionals from around the globe share their experience, innovation and latest research.\u202f\u202f <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Motions adopted: from criminalising ecocide, to synthetic biology and more <\/h2>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The Members\u2019 Assembly is the Union\u2019s highest decision-making body and brings together IUCN Members to debate and establish environmental policy, to approve the IUCN Programme and to elect the IUCN Council and President.\u202fMotions are proposed and if they are adopted, they become a Resolution and part of IUCN policy. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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At this year\u2019s Member\u2019s Assembly, over 150 motions were adopted, many of which made history or set a new precedent in global policy. These include Motion 061<\/a>, \u2018Recognising the crime of ecocide to protect nature\u2019. The motion called on states to recognise ecocide as a serious crime in national and international law and recommended that States Parties to the Rome Statute evaluate an amendment to make ecocide an explicit ICC crime in peacetime and during armed conflict. It also tasked IUCN\u2019s World Commission on Environmental Law to produce practical guidance on the scope and application of prosecuting ecocide, including how prosecutions can support ecosystem restoration and safeguard geodiversity, with Council support and Director General dissemination to members no later than one year before the 2029 Congress[1]<\/sup><\/a>https:\/\/www.stopecocide.earth\/bn-2025\/governments-vote-for-recognition-of-ecocide-at-worlds-largest-conservation-congress<\/span> <\/a><\/span><\/span>