Change World Leaders’ Conservation Forum 2018 into Global Environmental Conference

Jeju Governor Won Hee-ryong met with IUCN Director General Inger Andersen

“Although global environmental problems originate from the region, solutions should eventually be drawn from joint collaborations around the world.”

So said Won Hee-ryong, governor of Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, during a meeting with Inger Andersen, Director General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) on January 18th at the Congress Center where the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting 2017, Davos Forum, was held.

At this meeting, Governor Won discussed the joint project between the Jeju government and IUCN, asking for active cooperation to hold World Leaders’ Conservation Forum 2018 as a global environmental conference.

“We are in discussions with the Ministry of Environment on preparation for the second forum slated for next year following the World Leaders’ Conservation Forum 2015,” he said. “We are looking forward to continuing cooperation to develop the Forum into a local government-initiated global environmental conference through co-hosting with Jeju, the Korean government, and IUCN to solve global environmental problems.”

In regards to the adoption of the resolution discussed at Word Conservation Congress (WCC) 2016 held in Hawaii in September, “I ask you to encourage the Jeju government to establish an education and training program center in Jeju to accept actively guidelines on management of global protected areas and spread them throughout the world,” said Won.

He added, “I want to continue to discuss progressive and sustainable ways for an implementation stage of the World Environment Hub Evaluation and Certification System, which will be completed in the first half of this year.”

In response, Inger Andersen said, “In order to make the World Environmental Hub Evaluation and Certification System an international standard, it is very important that international organizations with high reliability such as IUCN and ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability), and UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) join directly as certification bodies. I hope that we will discuss roles and responsibilities of each organization regarding operations from the first half of this year.”

Meanwhile, the Jeju government and IUCN plan to complete the World Environmental Hub Evaluation and Certification System by the first half of this year through public opinion collected from meetings with working groups and coordinating committee, and they are going to seek ways of cooperating with international organizations.