At IUCN’s World Conservation Congress which took place a year ago, the Members adopted Resolution 8.081 on Advancing the sustainable management, use, and trade of wild species. This resolution recognises that:
KMGBF [Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework] Targets 5 and 9 offer unique opportunities to halt biodiversity loss, foster innovation and strengthen wildlife-based and fishery economies globally while ensuring that the management, use, harvesting and trade of wild species are sustainable, safe, legal and beneficial to people, including Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
The resolution is directly relevant to IUCN’s mission to “Influence, encourage and assist societies to… ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable.” The centrality of this resolution to IUCN’s core mission is further supported by its direct request for action by the IUCN Council:
REQUESTS the IUCN Council to oversee the development of a statement, detailed strategy and workplan for mainstreaming the sustainable use of wild species into the Union’s work, making a distinction between terrestrial and aquatic species, and of guidance for monitoring progress to achieving KMGBF Targets 5 and 9
IUCN Council’s lack of action on Resolution 8.081
In the background documents (Council document C117/5.2) for the April 2026 meeting of the IUCN Council, the request for action from Resolution 8.081 is listed. There is, however, no indication from the Summary Minutes that this request was considered. Rather, the minutes record that the Programme and Policy Committee (PCC) has prioritised another decision regarding sustainable use – Resolution 8.065 on Updating the IUCN Policy on the Sustainable Use of Wild Living Resources. The minutes noted:
For Resolution 8.065, on sustainable use of wild living resources, the Chair of PPC noted that the issue was sensitive and complex. PPC had decided to establish a task force to consider the need for revision or updating of the IUCN policy statement on sustainable use and to guide the related process, including governance, resource mobilisation, and policy review.
So, the IUCN Council appears to have decided to work on a review of policy rather than on implementation even though it has a clear request from the Members to oversee “the development of a statement, detailed strategy, and workplan for mainstreaming the sustainable use of wild species into the Union’s work.”
To assist the Council, the Secretariat, the Commission, and the Members to “mainstreaming the sustainable use of wild species into the Union’s work,” we can take a first look for opportunities in the IUCN Programme 2026–2029 also adopted by the Members at last year’s Congress.
An opportunity to review of IUCN’s Theory of Change
The Council may want to start with a review IUCN’s Theory of Change (ToC) set out in Annex I of the IUCN Programme. While the ToC strongly advances the Union’s role in influencing and assisting conservation action, it places less explicit emphasis on the IUCN Mission’s commitment to “ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable.”
IUCN’s ToC is a single if/then chain:
If IUCN
1. Strengthens its constituent parts,
2. Scales up area-based conservation, and
3 .Focuses collectively on eight transformative pathways,
then it can
a. Halt and reverse biodiversity loss,
b. Protect critical species and ecosystems, and
c. Restore degraded ecosystems.
Further, IUCN is to align this work around six catalytic roles:
- Convening and networking;
- Knowledge, science, and data;
- Policy and advocacy;
- Capacity strengthening;
- Mobilising resources; and
- Education and building awareness.
Even though “Equitable, legitimate, legal and sustainable use” appears in a diagram in the Annex as an impact statement, nothing links this statement to the ToC, the eight transformative pathways or the six catalytic roles. Destructive drivers, on the other hand, are addressed throughout the eight pathways, but wild-species use is indirectly covered only where those pathways touch it, such as food and the blue economy.
Strategically, the Council could propose to address sustainable use as a cross-cutting thread in the ToC, not as a ninth pathway. As the Programme says IUCN is “mainstreaming biodiversity actions” into the eight pathways, the Council could set out how sustainable use actions can contribute to each of these pathways.
Strengthening explicit commitments to sustainable use and resource‑governance outcomes in the ToC would improve coherence with the Union’s foundational mission. It would also have direct implications for delivery of KMGBF Target 5 (sustainable, safe, and legal use, harvesting and trade of wild species) and Target 9 (sustainable management and use of wild species for people’s livelihoods).
Mainstreaming sustainable use into the IUCN Programme
The 2026-2029 Programme does not have a dedicated sustainable-use output. Rather, the use of wild species appears mainly as a threat – “unsustainable”, “illegal”, “unsafe”. A mandate for a positive strategy, however as noted above, can be found in Impact 3: “Equitable, legitimate, legal and sustainable use of nature and natural resources have contributed to both nature conservation and a just, equitable and sustainable society.” In this regard, reference is made to the IPBES assessment on sustainable use of wild species, but interestingly not to the work of the IUCN Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group.
Nevertheless, linked to Impact 3, there are several opportunities for mainstreaming sustainable use into the Programme. These include integrating Targets 5 and 9 into Programme outputs focused on a “Just, equitable conservation of nature at scale.” For example:
- Output 1 on Recognising, respecting, and promoting the rights, agency and stewardship of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, including environmental defenders. Opportunities could include “Providing guidance and capacity-building for the optimisation of legal and regulatory frameworks” regarding the rights, agency and stewardship of Indigenous Peoples and local communities to harvest and use wild species.
- Output 5 on Assessing the status of biodiversity. The evolution of green status standards and lists for species and ecosystems could take into account “sustainable biodiversity-based activities, products and services that enhance biodiversity” is set out in Target 9.
- Output 8 on the Protection and recovery of threatened species. Though the interventions highlighted in this output focus on threats – “combatting and working to prevent and end illegal wildlife use and trade and other wildlife crime; mitigating human–wildlife conflict and fostering co-existence; combatting and working to end over-exploitation and unsustainable use – the actions could include the aims of Targets 5 and 9 to ensure sustainable and legal use, harvesting, and trade for human benefit.
- Output 13 on Preventing and reducing crimes that affect the environment. This output highlights “Crimes that affect the environment – spanning illegal deforestation, mining and land conversion; illegal wildlife exploitation, use and trafficking; and illegal fishing.” In this regard, the Council could explore opportunities for promoting the decimalisation of the harvesting, use, and trade of wild species.
There are also opportunities for mainstreaming sustainable use in the Programme outputs focused on delivering “the Eight Global Transformations for nature and people.” For example:
- Output 3 on Fostering sustainable food and agricultural systems. IUCN has a tangible opportunity to broaden its aim “to promote and implement sustainable and nature-positive food and agricultural systems,” to also encompass what could be called ‘wildcultural systems’ that manage and harvest wild animal and plant species for food and other human uses.
- Output 7 Enabling a regenerative blue economy. As elsewhere in the Programme, there is a focus here on negative drivers – in this case, “unselective, unsustainable and unmonitored (UUU) fishing; illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing; harmful subsidies; plastic pollution; and nutrient run-off.” The Council could recommend that these are addressed through promoting selective, sustainable, and monitored (SSM) fishing and legal, reported, and regulated (LRR) fishing. “Provision of legal, policy and scientific and technical guidance, support and capacity building for the development of a regenerative blue economy” could focus on ensuring SSM and LRR fishing.
Prioritising mainstreaming over policy review
The IUCN Council has a challenging agenda with the last World Conservation Conference calling for it to act on 25 resolutions. Several of these are relevant to IUCN’s mission on sustainable use, notably Resolution 8.065 on updating the IUCN policy and Resolution 8.081 on advancing sustainable use. By prioritising the former and not the latter, the Council is missing an opportunity to reaffirm that IUCN has not forgotten its mission. A year on from the Congress, now is the time for the IUCN Council to get on with “the development of a statement, detailed strategy, and workplan on mainstreaming the sustainable use of wild species into the Union’s work.”
By Francis Vorhies and Sebastian Winkler
Addendum: Next Steps for the Council to respond to Resolution 8.081
Resolution 8.081 asks Council to oversee four deliverables – a statement, a detailed strategy, a workplan, and monitoring guidance for KMGBF Targets 5 and 9. At an upcoming meeting, the IUCN Councilt may want to consider adopting the following steps to attain these deliverables:
- Step 1: Set up governance. Establish an oversight group and a cross-constituent working group. Set up two sub-streams, terrestrial and aquatic since Resolution 8.081 sets out this distinction.
- Step 2: Baseline and gap analysis. Review the Programme outcomes and outputs against the Resolution. Identify the best-fitting ones and also what is missing, as there is no explicit link in the IUCN Programme to Targets 5 and 9.
- Step 3: Draft the statement. Draft a short Union-wide statement on sustainable use that could align with Impact 3’s wording on “Equitable, legitimate, legal and sustainable use.” Define key terms and set out core principles based on long-standing IUCN policies. This would also support the sustainable use policy view currently underway.
- Step 4: Develop the strategy. Use the ToC in Annex 1 as the framework and set out how sustainable use can be mainstreamed into the eight transformative pathways.
- Step 5: Build the workplan. For each strategic priority identified, set out activities and outputs, mapped to the relevant Programme outputs.
- Step 6: Develop monitoring guidance for Targets 5 and 9. Use the CBD monitoring framework as the starting point and work out how IUCN data can inform national reporting. Align with the Programme’s accountability process to support the Union to report on these targets.
- Step 7: Consult, adopt, and resource. Circulate drafts of the workplan and guidance through the Programme and Policy Committee, Commission steering committees, regional committees, and so on, and then bring back to Council for approval. Further, as the Programme itself allocates no funds to outputs, this workplan should also include a funding strategy.
- Step 8: Implement, review, and report. Plan a mid-term check and a final report to the next Congress, including recommendations on whether sustainable use should become a stronger element of the next IUCN Programme.