Our Commitment to action for the Promise of Sydney
Below is the current list of commitments recorded during and after the IUCN World Parks Congress 2014. Please note that this list is continually evolving as commitments are made, expanded and added to the record.
The IUCN President invited further promises and commitments to be made. These can be notified to: wcpa@iucn.org,and will be added to the online register of promises. Please also notify us if the commitment as stated below is not recorded correctly.
Commitments made by: Governments ¦ Organisations
Commitments made by Governments to the Promise of Sydney
Australia: Education and research | Australia committed to:
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Australia: Government of New South Wales | The New South Wales Government committed to:
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Australia: Great Barrier Reef and Marine Conservation | Australia committed to:
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Australia: Indigenous Peoples | Australia committed to: A newly reconstituted Indigenous Advisory Committee, chaired by Melissa George. This committee is an important group that provides the Ministry of Environment with sound and ongoing advice on cultural and natural resource management under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. |
Australia: Rainforest recovery, wildlife crime and threatened species | Australia committed to:
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Bangladesh | Bangladesh committed to: The establishment of the first Marine Protected Area in Bangladesh, to protect whales, dolphins, sharks, and other marine life. Spanning some 1,738 km2 with a depth of more than 900 meters, the Swatch of No Ground Marine Protected Area is larger than Cape Cod Bay and includes waters at the head of the submarine canyon from which it gets its name. |
Brazil: Amazon | The Brazilian Ministry of the Environment (MMA), committed to: Pursue the plan for the third phase of the ARPA Program together with state governments and partners for the consolidation of 60 million hectares of protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon by 2020 and to pursue budgetary allocations, development of new tools, improvement in governance and leveraging public and political support for the maintenance of these areas henceforth, transitioning from donor funds to government budgetary support for these areas over a 25-year period. This commitment will result in: the creation of 6 million hectares of new PA in the Brazilian Amazon; the attainment of 60 million hectares of PA supported by the ARPA Program; the development of new tools to increase efficiency of government resource use; the guaranteed minimum staffing level for all PA supported by the Program; coordination of government agencies at both Federal and State levels for planning and financing of PA Systems; overcoming the current gap for basic PA financing. |
Brazil: Marine | Brazil committed to:
The result would be: Expansion of protected area coverage of Brazilian coast, territorial sea and Economic Exclusive Zone to 5%; |
Burundi | Burundi committed to: Increasing Burundi’s protected areas estate from 5.4% to 10% within the next several years, and to strengthen enforcement. |
Cambodia | Cambodia committed to: Establishing a new marine park for mangrove conservation and involving the local community in protecting our natural areas. |
Cameroon | Cameroon committed to: Conserving protected areas to enhance the livelihood of the local population and improve economies of the nation. |
Canada: Parks Canada | Parks Canada committed to:
Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial parks ministers have further committed to work together to creatively and collaboratively inspire Canadians to experience nature through parks in ways that support their health and well-being. |
Canada: Quebec | Quebec committed to: Dedicate, by 2035, 50% of the Plan Nord territory for purposes other than industrial ones, to environmental protection and the safeguarding of biodiversity (which represents an area of 600,000km2). In the short term, by 2020, the Québec Government is committed to establishing strictly protected areas in at least 20% of the Plan Nord territory (equivalent to 240,00km2). |
China | China committed to:
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Comores | Comores committed to:
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Costa Rica | Costa Rica committed to: Continuing to strengthen the course of conservation and sustainable use of natural resources developed through a robust system of National Parks and Protected Areas created 44 years ago, and to promote internationally that the use of these areas be consistent with the principles of their creation. |
Fiji | Fiji committed to: Achieving its target of conserving 30% of the Exclusive Economic Zone by 2020 in establishing inshore and offshore Locally Managed Marine Areas and Marine Protected Areas |
France | France committed to:
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French Polynesia | French Polynesia committed to: Create a new large-scale marine protected area initiative in the Austral Islands. |
Gabon | Gabon committed to:
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Italy: Federparchi | Federparchi committed to: Propose at least five new protected areas for listing on the IUCN Green List of Protected Areas. The protected areas will be chosen among National, Regional Parks, private areas and Natura 2000 sites (sites of EU interest). |
Japan | The Ministry of the Environment, Japan, committed to:
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Kiribati | Kiribati committed to: Furthering the Phoenix Island Protected Area (PIPA), an area of 408,250 km2 collaborating with the USA on science and management within the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument and the Phoenix Islands Protected Areas. |
Madagascar | Madagascar committed to:
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Namibia | Namibia committed to: A programme to intensively create awareness among the youth and to empower local people to be wildlife stewards through their role in managing and preserving natural systems and to put a stop to poaching in the country. |
Palau | Palau committed to: Restricting commercial fisheries in Palau’s entire 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone of 600,000 km2 and marine protected areas. |
Panama | Panama committed to: Restore 1 million hectares of degraded lands within protected areas. |
Peru | Peru committed to: Through the Ministry of the Environment (MINAM) and the National Service of Natural Protected Areas (SERNANP), with the support of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Blue Moon Fund, PROFONANPE, and the Peruvian Society of Environmental Law, to support the implementation of the initiative “Ensuring the Future of Peru’s Protected Areas (Asegurando el Futuro de las Áreas Protegidas del Perú),” through mutual and extensive collaboration, and collective action aimed at guaranteeing the ecological, political, institutional and financial sustainability of the National System of Protected Areas. In other words, to ensure long term financial sustainability as well as effective and inclusive management of 20 million hectares of the Protected Area System by 2021 in collaboration with international cooperation, civil society and the private sector through the creation of innovative financial models and appropriate participatory management tools to better protect Peru´s amazing cultural and biological diversity. |
Russia | Russia committed to:
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South Africa | South Africa committed to:
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Spain: Junta de Andalucía region | The Regional Ministry of the Environment and Territorial Planning, Junta de Andalucía) committed to:
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The United States National Park Service | The US National Park Service committed to: Setting up a programme to engage 100,000 youth in US Protected Areas. |
Commitments made by Organisations to the Promise of Sydney
Global Environment Facility (GEF) | The Global Environment Facility, as the financial mechanism of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the largest funder of protected area systems, committed through its biodiversity strategy as well as its long-term GEF 2020 strategy, and taking account of the innovative approaches identified in Sydney, to support country-driven actions to help conserve and sustainably use biodiversity through effectively managed protected area systems that are integrated into sustainable landscape and seascape mosaics in 146 developing countries and countries with economies in transition. |
Secretariat of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance | The Ramsar Convention will work to establish a Global Partnership for Wetlands Restoration, integrating governmental, NGO and private sector actors in order to mobilise large-scale investment in green infrastructure and to stop, slow and reverse the trend in wetland loss. |
Secretariats of the Ramsar Convention and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification | The Ramsar Convention and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification will work together to commit our organisations to the achievement of Land Degradation Neutrality. |
UNDP | Building on a $16 million partnership between the Government of Germany and the GEF Small Grants Programme, UNDP commits to mobilizing at least $100 million in support of the diversity and quality of governance of protected areas, including through the appropriate recognition and protection of indigenous and community conserved territories and areas (ICCAs), in at least 50 countries at the global level in support of the Promise of Sydney and CBD Aichi targets 11, 14 and 18 from 2014-2024. |
The Elion Foundation and the Secretariat of the UNCCD | Elion Foundation and The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) committed to: The creation of a public-private partnership to reduce land degradation and increase the rate of restoration of degraded land. The partnership will include the planting of 1.3 billion trees along the historic Silk Road. |
ICCA Consortium | The ICCA Consortium, representing 76 civil society members organisations from five continents, committed to promoting the full diversity, quality and vitality of governance and conservation of nature in the wider landscape and seascape to achieve the CBD Aichi targets and UN post-2015 sustainable development goals through transformational models of subsidiarity in economic and political systems to support the commons, territorial-based democracy, equity and justice, ecological sustainability, and human well-being. |
The Rockefeller Foundation and IUCN | A Natural Capital Dialogue and Working Group, convened by The Rockefeller Foundation and IUCN, aims to connect the natural capital and biodiversity community with public and private finance to advance the integration of the value of nature investment decisions and measures of economic performance. A necessary additional component is to develop a measure of biodiversity stock that will vary following investment. |
Young Professionals | The Young Professionals through the Young Peoples Pact made a commitment which can be viewed here |
The Nature Conservancy | The Nature Conservancy committed to bringing spatially explicit ecosystem services science to conservation, development, climate and engineering fora to inform management decisions and increase investments in coastal and marine habitat protection and restoration. By characterising, mapping, quantifying ecosystem services at their source and valuing those services using metrics which resonate with policymakers, private sector and civil society we can grow support for stronger conservation and more sustainable development outcomes in a changing climate. The Conservancy’s goal is to describe – in quantitative terms – all the benefit the ocean provides to people, for smarter policy and investments decisions to ensure the protection and restoration of those benefits for today and in the future. The anticipated results include:
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International Institute for Environment and Development | IIED, supported by representatives from Indigenous Peoples, local communities, private conservation organisations, NGOs, funders and governments (among others), committed to developing Human Rights Standards for Conservation to support ethical conservation. The above group will discuss and decide on the requisite approach, deliverables and timelines and work towards initial outcomes by the World Conservation Congress in 2016. The approaches, resources and activities are intended to directly address continuing instances of conservation injustice. |
Birdlife International | BirdLife International, a global partnership of over 120 leading national nature conservation organisations, committed through their global strategy to continue to provide authoritatively, updated, high-quality data on Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs), through strengthened IBA monitoring, and to make these data accessible to guide decision-making. Through the ‘IBAs in Danger initiative, they will maintain a list of the most highly threatened IBAs, and invite governments, the private sector, local communities and civil society organisations to join with them to implement conservation actions. |
American Museum of Natural History | Committed to forming a diverse working group on capacity development evaluation, to identify and seek support for building evidence for the essential role of capacity development in achieving biodiversity conservation and social equity goals, and for developing an annotated directory of evaluation tools, practices, and processes that will help document the role of capacity development in overall goals into the future. |
IUCN Commission on Education and Communication (CEC) | The IUCN Commission on Education and Communication committed to keeping alive a conversation with connecting young people with nature in IUCN and to ensuring that this conversation emerges at the World Conservation Congress in Hawaii. The IUCN CEC also committed to supporting young professionals and particularly to invest in them and seek opportunities to engage them in conservation careers. |
PACIFIC, a consortium of the Wildlife Conservation Society (Pacific), WWF Pacific, Locally Managed Marine Areas Network, University of the South Pacific, Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), IUCN-CEESP, Conservation International (CI), and the IUCN Oceania Regional Office. | PACIFIC committed to an enduring and meaningful partnership between all Conservation colleagues and partners in the Pacific, to:
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