World Conservation Congress wraps up in Jeju

Posted on : 2012-09-18 14:14 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Chinese national named first Asian to lead Intl. Union for Conservation of Nature
 Sept. 15. (Provided by the WCC organizing committee)
Sept. 15. (Provided by the WCC organizing committee)

By Kim Jeong-su, environment correspondent

“The famous philosopher Lao-tze talked about how the human being is an integrated part of nature. The idea of a solution rooted in nature, which is the key theme of this meeting, seems to have been articulated already 2,600 years ago in China.”

Eco-Forum Global co-founder Zhang Xinsheng had this to say at the closing ceremony for the World Conservation Congress, held from Sept. 6 to 15 in Jeju. Freshly named as the new president of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) until the next congress four years from now, Zhang said the event showed how it was possible to create a more prosperous and harmonious society by conserving nature.

The congress was the first ever held in East Asia, and the Zhang of China’s appointment made him the first Asian director in the IUCN’s 64-year history.

Around ten thousand participants came to the ten-day conference from 153 countries, including 5,000 nature conservation experts. They ended up staging a lively debate on the topic of conservation and the latest evidence on the state of the Earth’s natural environment, including findings on diminishing coral reefs in the Caribbean.

They approved a number of key efforts for the IUNC: checking a rise in elephant and rhinoceros poaching, devising an international treaty to protect wild animals from mercury pollution, and enacting stricter international treaties on crimes against animals. They also voted on resolutions calling for action to protect rapidly declining bluefin tuna populations in the Atlantic, as well as endangered dolphins, and put a stop to illegal bear raising in East Asia.

The South Korean government attempted a new forum for discussion this year with the event’s first-ever World Leaders’ Dialogue, and successfully had a plan included in the Jeju Declaration for developing it into the World Leaders’ Conservation Forum, a kind of “Korean Davos.” It also had a number of resolutions specific to the Korean situation adopted as formal IUNC resolutions, including one urging international collaboration to reduce damage from yellow dust, and another calling for ecosystem preservation efforts in the Yellow Sea. Observers pointed to this focusing of international attention on South Korean environmental policy as a major success for the congress.

The congress did fall short in some areas, though. Specifically, the IUCN executive hurt its own image by jettisoning neutrality and showing a bias toward Seoul‘s official position on environmental concerns affecting South Korea. Environmental groups pointed to the failed attempt to set up a booth at the congress to alert people to environmental issues with the naval base under construction at Jeju’s Gangjeong Village as a clear example of the IUCN failing to remain neutral. The group has voiced a strong distrust of the organization.

Another issue is the fact that the government, in an effort to check the growing controversy over the base construction effort, denied a number of overseas environment and peace activists entry to the country - up to and including the request of the IUCN’s own Japanese chapter head, who was planning to attend the opening ceremony.

The Korea Environment Council, a coalition that represents Korean environmental groups, said on Sept. 18 that with the event, the IUCN and WCC organizing committee “bowed to the government, big business, and militarism, and did serious harm to the WCC’s spirit of neutrality, which is opening up new horizons in science-based natural ecosystem management.”

The council said it would continue working to alert international NGOs to the “truth” about the congress.

 

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