The IUCN Local Action Summit took place on 3 September 2021—the opening day of the IUCN World Conservation Congress—in Marseille, France. Leaders convened to showcase and galvanise conservation efforts in cities and regions, make the case for a nature-based recovery to COVID-19, and announce ambitious action pledges for nature. Here follows a translated transcript of the speech delivered by the French Minister for Housing, Emmanuelle Wargon.
Mr President of IUCN, ladies and gentlemen, elected officials and mayors, on behalf of the French government, I am very honoured to open this Summit at the World Congress, here at the City of Marseille, in this beautiful area of France known as Bouche-du-Rhone whose president is Martine Vassal, and also in Region Sud whose president is Renaud Muselier.
This is a clear recognition of the important role local authorities play in working towards global nature conservation objectives. It points at our common action and on the essential mobilization of all of us together: states, local authorities, companies and civil society, as well as individual citizens in this undertaking.
The 2019 global assessment report by the scientific community, clearly indicates that as a result of climate change, there are worldwide unprecedented changes in the climate that spare no continent area, and therefore, involve all areas of human responsibility that account for the greenhouse gases, the urban spread of pollution, dissemination of invasive species—many different trends. All of these organizations are asking us to ask and to act urgently at a worldwide level and at a local level, our collective responsibility is to answer this call for action.
If we are here, is it because the local communities have their own level of competence where they are located, whether they’re involved in planning, urbanism, education, or other areas. They are close to the people and to the territory and to people’s day-to-day concerns.
I am sure that partnership at different scales of action, represents one of the keys to success in order to answer the challenge presented by the loss of biodiversity. This is of course a reversible process because if we act in a determined manner, we will be able to improve things here. In fact, many partnerships between the public and private communities are being established and I’d like to refer to three of them:
At a regional level, we have a synergy of action between the state and the French Office for Biodiversity in the regions through the establishment of regional biodiversity agencies at a more local level. A number of territories are added to the preservation of nature, and this is present in 240 different territories in France, OFB regions and the state are involved in supporting actions in favour of biodiversity working with local communities, for example, by publishing an atlas diversity at a regional level in order to know and preserve and protect the local flora.
And then we have the local ecological transition contracts which are also for recovery of the economy, where the state has invested jointly with the communities, in order to ensure the quality of life, and to ensure a smooth transition, both in terms of climate and in terms of biodiversity, consistent with this position, France fully supports the motion that will be presented in the context of this IUCN Congress in order to permit local communities to directly join IUCN and I think this is a very important step.
Among the major insignia, we have the urban spaces and defence of nature here in France, and also within the cities themselves at the edge of these urban areas, we need to protect the agricultural and natural areas. We need to limit urban spread. We need to emphasize the use of urban spaces that are open to nature. At the same time, we need to work with the inhabitants, and with the population by taking care of their economic activities and their social activity, which requires the local communities to participate in local design and to be more actively involved in planning. In this regard, the climate and resilience law promulgated recently in France has the objective to have zero artificial spaces by 2050. We are also investing 650 million euros in an economic recovery program in order to use open land for nature rather than for agricultural purposes.
Within cities, we also need to make more room for nature and biodiversity, and we need to emphasize ecological diversity. This continuity provides a greater number of services: fighting against heat waves, against floods, improving and embellishing people’s day to day life, and making life more desirable. We also emphasize the fact that we need to reach an appropriate level of density.
In that regard, I’d like to praise the resolution at the 2016 Congress by integrating the human dimension of nature conservation into the work of IUCN. Here in France, we are working hard on that project. As an example, let me cite the major prize, Grand Prix de l’Urbanisme, which was given to Jacqueline Osty, whose ambition was to design natural areas within the cities. This is a clear recognition of the importance of nature in the urban context.
I am convinced that all of these are opportunities to improve our lives, to react properly to climate change, and to innovate by looking at the nature-based solutions before us. In this connection, I have recently launched an initiative called Living in Tomorrow’s France, where we will be working on a vision and on joint thinking and innovation based on demonstration projects, showing that we know how to work with the constraints and the challenges to have a sustainable and desirable future in France and throughout the world.
The challenge is to sow the seeds to share good practice to learn from each other’s experiences in the most committed cities, and learn from our difficulties and our challenges and how we’ve overcome them. So, I’m very happy to see this Summit presenting an opportunity to exchange the pioneers’ experiences and to learn from each other.
The joint experience of IUCN is very useful and should be reinforced in order to join our tools, our commitments and our solutions, and also to share our difficulties because of course we learn from these difficulties, as well as from our capacity to overcome them.
I know that there will be a great wealth of exchange and that this will work in favour of biodiversity and what it represents for humanity. We must act, this is something we all know and we must all work together.
Thank you very much.