IUCN

IUCN stands for International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

It is an International Organization working for the conservation of nature and sustainable use of Natural resources.

There are more than 1400 governmental and non-governmental organizations in IUCN.

Founded on 5th October, 1948 in FONTAINEBLEAU, France.

Headquarter is in Gland, Switzerland.

1948-58 it was known as the International Union for Protection of Nature (IUPN).

Early days and Formation

IUPN initially had 65 members who were working closely with UNESCO.

The Conference of 1949 in New York (Lake Success) is where the 1st list of gravely endangered species was made.

Before 1949 IUPN was dependent on UNESCO’s funding and so it was shut down. In 1956 it restarted independently after changing its name to IUCN.

To raise funds for the work IUCN started the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in 1961.

Facts

1. Ramsar convention created in 1975 has it’s secretariat still administered from IUCN headquarters.

2. The world’s 100 most threatened species list was published on September 11, 2012 from Jeju, South Korea.

3. IUCN Red List of threatened species was established in 1964.
   
   

4. IUCN Green List is for protected and conserved areas. It is necessary for global Nature Conservation.

5. IUCN is currently the biggest and most diverse environmental network.

6. IUCN has the IUCN World Conservation Congress every 4 years. The meeting was to be held in 2020 but due to global pandemic it has been rescheduled to 3rd to 11th September, 2021 in Marseille, France.
   

7. INDIA has been a member of IUCN since 1969 through the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

IUCN in news

1. Due to human conflict 200 endangered species are threatened, one of them is Gorilla. 

2. 1920 Pygmy Tarsiers (image attached below) were thought and known to be extinct but they were rediscovered in 2008. 2020 they are believed to have decreased in number. These are majorly found in central Sulawesi, Indonesia.
   

3. The IUCN Green List has added 10 sites of Italy, Switzerland and France.

4.  6th May, 2021 a new baby Bongo was born in Warsaw Zoo, Poland. Mountain Bongos (image attached below) are critically endangered antelopes. They are found in large numbers among the African Forest Antelopes. Nearly 70-80 adults of the species are said to have left in the wild.
   

5. Group of shark hunters from South Africa caught a fish in the net. The fish is Coelacanth (image attached below), a breed thought to have been extinct at the time of Dinosaurs. It is Critically Endangered under the IUCN Red List.
   

6. 300 rare Saiga Antelopes (image attached below) were killed by lightning in Kazakhstan. It is one of the threatened species under the IUCN Red List, with around 124000 adults living.
   

7. The IUCN Red List says the African Elephants (image attached below) are facing growth in the risk of Extinction.
   

8. In Nagpur recently the death of 10 wild animals have occurred among the 43 wild animals that fell in open wells in the last 30 days.

9. Updated Red List was released in December, 2020 :-
   a. 31 species are extinct in the wild
   b. Now there are 128918 species in the list, of which nearly one-third are threatened with extinction
   c. 902 – Extinct [80 Extinct in Wild],
   7762 – Critically Endangered,
   13285 – Endangered,
   14718 – Vulnerable,
   7644 – Near Threatened,
   66469 – Least concerned
   d. European Bison (image attached below), one of the largest land animals of Europe, has moved from Vulnerable to Near Threatened due to an increase in its population.
   
   
   

Sources

• iucn.org

• dailystar

• pressenza.com

• sciencedirect.com

• wikipedia.com

• iucnredlist.org

• euronews

• theHindu

• Mongabay

• National Geography

• The Print

• Times of India