Young Professionals Leadership Team within the the International Union for the Conservation of the Nature (IUCN)'s Commission for Education and Communication (CEC)

Are you interested to join the Young Professionals Leadership Team within the the International Union for the Conservation of the Nature (IUCN)'s Commission for Education and Communication (CEC) ? Then you are reading the right email. If you consider yourself as a climate, environmental or conservation young professional - being you students, practitioners, professionals, and indigenous persons, etc aged 35 and younger and based from anywhere across the globe - then you are eligible to join the CEC YPLT and contribute to our vision, mission and work. 

The CEC's Young Professionals network make up a significant portion of the IUCN Commission on Education and Communication (CEC) membership (nearly 30% in September 2012) and is contributing in meaningful ways to the implementation of the Commission mandate and IUCN mission. The CEC YP brings a range of relevant expertise, knowledge, skills, and networks to the Commission. In addition to our areas of specialty we seek to increase meaningful youth engagement in and through the Commission and espouse an intergenerational approach to activities that promotes communication, learning, and collaboration across generations. The broader purpose of the CEC YP Network is based in youth engagement and intergenerational partnership. While we make a special effort to engage young people on the CEC (aged 18-35), we do not want this to separate them from the rest of the IUCN Commission on Education and Communication (CEC) and its activities. In fact, a key purpose is to integrate young people in meaningful ways into the work of the Commission. 

The CEC YP’s vision is a community of sustainability leaders of different generations, geographies, and genders learning and working together within and through IUCN for a just, sustainable, and a peaceful world. Our mission is to foster intergenerational partnership between established and emerging leaders to contribute in meaningful ways to the work of the CEC and the Union. Our goal for 2013 - 2016 is to increase proactive and meaningful participation of emerging conservation and sustainability leaders in the work of the CEC and other Commissions.

Join us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/ypltnetworking/?fref=ts

Join us our Google group by sending a request to CEC-YPLT@googlegroups.com

Read more about our work at http://intergenerationalpartnership.wikispaces.com/yp-cec

LOGO DESIGN COMPETITION

Entries Open 20th Jan 2014

Close 16th March 2014

You must be 35 and under to enter.

Dear friends,
The Young Professionals (YP) Group of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) is inviting young creative artists from all over the world to help design its logo!

We are looking for a bold, creative design that will be inspired by the theme "Young Peoples for Parks, People and Planet" and will be used internationally on our letterheads, reports, events and website giving your work unlimited visibility!

The Young Professionals Group of The IUCN WCPA is a voluntary group and a collective forum of like-minded young peoples associated with protected areas and conservation. Our Mission is to foster intergenerational partnerships between established and emerging young Protected Area leaders and professionals to contribute in meaningful ways to the work of WCPA and broader IUCN in valuing and conserving biodiversity, governing nature’s use and sharing its benefits equitably, and deploying nature-based solutions to global challenges.

Help us to represent our values in our logo! 

The logo will be officially launched at The IUCN World Parks Congress 2014 in Sydney in front of around 3,000 people from over 160 countries. We are also considering a nominal monetary incentive for the most creative and inspiring design.

Send your original design, details (name, birthdate, short bio), description of the logo and what inspired you to create it to mariasole.bianco@worldrise.org

Birds indicate a planet in peril, but investing in conservation makes economic sense

Declines in birds across the globe are providing evidence of a rapid deterioration in the global environment that is affecting all life on earth – including people. However, birds also tell us that saving the planet comes at a relatively small price – an investment that’s vital to secure our own future.

These are some of the messages in a new report State of the World’s Birds: indicators for our changing world by BirdLife International, an IUCN Red List partner, who gathered last week in Ottawa, Canada to launch the report and unveil their vision for a world rich in biodiversity, where people and nature live in harmony.

Image by Michael Leveille 2013

A call for submission of applications for the IUCN-funded internship

Opportunities to be awarded to and taken up by successfully selected candidates at the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol (UNFCCC secretariat) in the city of Bonn, Germany.

Applications may be submitted directly to the IUCN Global Gender Office from 23 May and closure date as 20 June 2013 after which applicants will be evaluated based on the eligibility criteria as set out below.

Requirements
This call for submissions is restricted to prospective applicants who have successfully completed an undergraduate degree and are enrolled and studying towards their Master degree (or equivalent of) at a recognized university or equivalent institution.  Importantly, at the time of application – and during the entire period of the internship – all applicants must be full-time students pursuing their Master degree (or equivalent of). Such studies should be in a field related to UNFCCC secretariat’s work on climate change adaptation and mitigation, and on gender.  Only applicants from countries considered most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, i.e. Least Developed Countries (LDCs) will be considered. Female applicants, in particular, are strongly encouraged to apply.

Questions about the internship can be sent by e-mail to: iucngenderoffice@iucn.org

From words to action – key organizations team up to stop the extinction crisis

Gland, Switzerland, 28 May 2013 – With unprecedented species declines and more than 20,000 of the species assessed on The IUCN Red List threatened with extinction, IUCN and other organizations come together to support the achievement of a global biodiversity target to prevent further species loss.

The partnership – Friends of Target 12 – will guide countries in their efforts to prevent further extinctions of threatened species and improve the conservation status of those disappearing most rapidly. This will help them achieve the so-called ‘Target 12’ – one of 20 ‘Aichi Biodiversity Targets’ adopted under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Japan in 2010.

“Today, species are disappearing at unprecedented rates,” says Jane Smart, Global Director of IUCN’s Biodiversity Conservation Group. “However, we know that conservation works. We need to do much more of it and at a much larger scale. We hope that this partnership will provide the concerted action that we urgently need to secure the long term survival of species.”

The initiative aims to bring together the knowledge and experience of government institutions, intergovernmental, non-governmental and community-based organizations, academic and professional networks and private sector companies working to conserve species and ensure their sustainable use. It will offer practical advice to countries on how to better protect species, providing a common space for its partners to share and build on their previous conservation successes. Partners include key international conventions on biodiversity such as the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

                                   Przewalski’s Horse (Equus ferus)

Out of 65,518 species currently assessed by The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™, 1,173 are Extinct or Possibly Extinct and 20,219 are threatened. However, past conservation action led by some of the organizations that are now joining the initiative has brought many species back from the brink of extinction. Examples include the Nepal’s Greater One-horned Rhino (Rhinoceros unicornis), Brazil’s Lear’s Macaw (Anodorhynchus leari), the Arabian Oryx (Oryx leucoryx), the California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus) and the Przewalski’s Horse (Equus ferus) in Mongolia.

Some Friends of Target 12 partners have already made specific commitments as part of the initiative and more are soon to be announced. IUCN, through The IUCN Red List and Species Survival Commission – a science-based network of almost 8,000 volunteer experts – will continue to provide information and analyses on the status, trends and threats to biodiversity in order to catalyze species conservation action.

The global species conservation fund SOS – Save Our Species, initiated by IUCN, Global Environment Facility and the World Bank will help governments and other institutions channel resources towards conserving threatened species.

“Many organizations and institutions around the world are contributing to the protection of species and are supporting the implementation of Target 12,” says Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, CBD Executive Secretary. “This partnership brings them together and enhances the support that we can provide to CBD Parties to finally move from words to implementation of the Aichi biodiversity targets.”

The partnership is officially supported by the CBD and currently has 21 partners.