Buenos Aires, Argentina - IUCN

Foreword
by the outgoing Director General, Dr Martin W. Holdgate
The General Assembly of IUCN - The World Conservation
Union is a unique parliament for the world
conservation movement. It brings together delegates
from the Union's more than 800 members, drawn from
over 100 countries around the world. They meet with
representatives of partner international organizations,
individual members of the IUCN Commissions, and
observers from non-member bodies. People from
governments, government agencies and non-governmental
organizations come together not only to discharge
the formal business of the Union but also to
consider global and regional environmental issues,
and the actions that should be taken by the World
Conservation Union, its members, and the world community
at large.
Since the inaugural meeting at Fontainebleau,
France, in 1948, the General Assembly has met in
Brussels, Belgium (1950); Caracas, Venezuela (1952);
Copenhagen, Denmark (1954); Edinburgh, Scotland,
United Kingdom (1956); Athens, Greece (1958); Warsaw,
Poland (1960); Nairobi, Kenya (1963); Luzern,
Switzerland (1966); New Delhi, India (1969); Banff,
Canada (1972); Kinshasa, Zaire (1975); Ashkhabad,
USSR (1978); Christchurch, New Zealand (1981);
Madrid, Spain (1984); San Jose, Costa Rica (1988) and
Perth, Australia (1990). It met in extraordinary session
in Geneva, Switzerland, in April 1977 to review the
Statutes of the Union.
The 19th Session of the General Assembly was held
from 17 to 26 January 1994, in Buenos Aires, Argentina,
at the kind invitation of the His Excellency The
President of the Republic of Argentina, Dr Carlos Saul
Menem. Local arrangements were guided by the
Secretary of State for Natural Resources and the
Human Environment, Dona Ing. Maria Julia Alsogaray.
The theme of the Session was "Caring for the
Earth and its People"—a theme chosen to emphasize
the role of the ten Workshops in following up the
second World Conservation Strategy, Caring for the
Earth: A Strategy for Sustainable Living, published by
IUCN, the United Nations Environment Programme
and the World Wide Fund For Nature in 1991. The
General Assembly was attended by over 1100 participants
from 109 countries. In addition, 144 IUCN
Secretariat staff from offices in 22 countries were present,
and over 700 Press were accredited. It was the
biggest such gathering in the history of IUCN.
This volume of Proceedings summarizes the main
events of the Assembly: the Plenary Sessions, special
presentations, Technical Meeting and Workshops.
The record shows that the Session was extremely
important for many reasons. It adopted a new Mission
Statement for the World Conservation Union, and a
Strategy to put it into effect. That Mission Statement
emphasizes that IUCN works as a supporting, enabling,
facilitating organization that seeks to "influence,
encourage and assist societies throughout the world
to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and
to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable
and ecologically sustainable". IUCN is a conservation
organization, but recognizes that sustainable development
processes are crucial if conservation is to be
achieved.
The General Assembly elected a new President of
IUCN, Dr Jay Hair, President of the National Wildlife
Federation of the United States of America. It recorded
its warm thanks to the outgoing President, Sir Shridath
Ramphal of Guyana. It elected a new Council,
and endorsed a programme and budget for the next
three years. It reviewed the roles of the six Commissions—unique
voluntary networks—and gave them
new mandates. All the Commissions held their own
meetings prior to the formal opening of the General
Assembly itself. The policy of decentralization and
regionalization of the Union's institutions which had
been endorsed by the preceding Session in Australia
and carried forward energetically since then was
strongly reaffirmed. As a result of that process, the
number of IUCN staff based in the developing world
has increased by more than threefold in three years,
and Headquarters is now the base for only a third of
the personnel. The Assembly also emphasized its expectation
that north-south balance would be sought in
appointments to the institutions of IUCN.
Meetings at regional and national levels are now
an established and increasing feature of the World
Conservation Union. The membership have made it
clear that they want to be much more closely involved
iii