The 10-day United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) sought to develop policies to fight global poverty while ensuring protection of Earth's ecological resources. Delegates from more than 170 countries, as well numerous non-governmental organizations, business associations and other groups attended the WSSD, a follow-up to the landmark 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Tariquia National Flora & Fauna Reserve, Bolivia © Ivan Arnold

What Was The Nature Conservancy's Role at the Summit?
Nature Conservancy staff attended the summit to advance new conservation initiatives, develop new partnerships, and share the Conservancy's mission, strategies and successes with summit participants.

Conservancy delegates and president Steve McCormick met with leaders from government agencies, non-governmental organizations, interest groups and private businesses to discuss current projects and establish a shared vision for solving biodiversity crises together.

Delegates from the Conservancy participated in several panel discussions that covered a range of topics, from involving local communities in the management of protected areas to developing new financial tools to fund conservation efforts. McCormick also participated in a panel on the Asian Forest Partnership initiative, which will address illegal logging in Indonesia. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) had granted the Conservancy $2.5 million to begin the Asian Forest Partnership.

The Conservancy cosponsored the Equator Initiative, a new program to encourage and bolster community-based conservation programs in developing countries across the Equatorial Belt, which contains some of the highest concentrations of human poverty and also the highest concentrations of biodiversity in the world. The Equator Initiative is a partnership between the UN Development Program, United Nations Foundation, government of Canada, International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and The Nature Conservancy.

The Equator Initiative awarded its Equator Prize to seven outstanding organizations that successfully achieved community partnerships, a reduction of poverty, and environmental conservation in the Equatorial Belt. Of the seven winners, two are partners of the Nature Conservancy:

• The Toledo Institute for Development and Environment (TIDE) protects the Maya Mountain Marine Corridor in Belize, a million-acre stretch of protected areas extending from the crest of the Maya Mountains to the Caribbean Sea. Through guide certification programs, skills training, ecotourism and conservation, TIDE has raised incomes and reduced illegal hunting, logging, and poaching of endangered manatees.
  
  
• Iniciativa Talamanca promotes sustainable development and protection of Costa Rica's Talamanca-Caribbean Corridor, one of the last forested coastal areas in the world and home to more than 90% of Costa Rica's plant species. In addition to establishing a National Wildlife Refuge and developing Central America's only permanent raptor migration monitoring program, Iniciativa Talamanca's successes include crop diversification, the creation of 13 ecotourism ventures, and a six-fold increase in local incomes.

McCormick announced at the Equator Prize awards ceremony that The Nature Conservancy will give $600,000 to 20 other projects that were nominated, but not awarded, the Equator Prize.

Learn more

• About The Nature Conservancy's success stories worldwide
• About how The Nature Conservancy works to achieve conservation results