#Earthday50 at IUCN World Conservation Congress

The past two weeks marked the “Olympics of Conservation”—the International Union for Conservation Nature’s (IUCN) World Conservation Congress (WCC). As an IUCN’s member, we participated in the decision-making process and vote for those motions consistent with our mission and our supporters’ core values. Other than forums and member assembly, the WCC also held an exhibition allowing organizations to present their work and achievements on environment protection to the public. Earth Day Network used this opportunity to spread the word of Earth Day 2020 to our friends working in the conservation field. Our Exhibition Earth Day’s 50^th Anniversary will take place in 2020, but it’s not too early to start planning. The launch of our “Trees for the Earth” last year—which pledges 7.8 billion trees to be planted, one for every person on earth—pushes our commitment to reforestation globally. People around the world praised the campaign. Our campaign for Earth Day 2017, Environmental Literacy, also drew enormous attention at the exhibition. The goal to equip our next generation with proper environmental literacy resonates with government officials and NGO leaders across the world. We loved hearing “Hey, we hosted Earth Day last year!” from people from the South Pacific to South America. At the booth we greeted a lot of old friends who help us share the importance Earth Day locally and globally. We continue to be amazed by their incredible work and efforts to mobilizing people to combat urgent environmental problems. During the exhibition, we also made some new friends working on tree planting, environment education and conservation from the Education Ministry of Kenya, IUCN Commission on Education and Communication China, SEE Foundation, APRN/BEPB of Burundi, and others! You can expect ever bigger Earth Day celebrations in the years to come. The world’s largest conservation assembly provided a tremendous platform for stakeholders to discuss, debate and determine the roadmap and agenda to take better care of our earth. As IUCN’s new global campaign—#NatureForAll—states, “the more people experience, connect with, and share their love for nature, the more support there will be for its conservation in the future.”     Zengdi Gu, Programs Associate