Multilateral Environmental Agreements Day at UNEA-7

Today there are over 1,500 MEAs addressing transboundary environmental priorities such as climate change, biodiversity loss, chemical pollution, or area-based conservation. The number of MIDAs is also increasing, bringing together designations that fall under different MEAs, such as Ramsar sites, World Heritage sites, Biosphere Reserves, UNESCO Global Geoparks, and Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS). 

Each of these international designation instruments has its own focus and management requirements, but they all share common goals of conservation, climate mitigation, and sustainable development, highlighting their relevance for global commitments, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF) and the COP15 Paris Agreement. 

MIDAs, by combining the different strengths of each international designation, have the potential to amplify protection, enhance ecological connectivity, and improve benefits for local communities. Yet, overlapping designations also bring governance complexity: different treaty mechanisms, reporting cycles, and stakeholder structures can make coordinated management challenging. 

That challenge was at the heart of the recent IUCN World Conservation Congress session, Improving the Conservation Outlook of MIDAs, held in Abu Dhabi. The session drew on the newly published IUCN World Heritage Outlook 4, preliminary results of the forthcoming update of the 2016 IUCN Managing MIDAs guidance, and lessons from the experience of the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province to explore practical solutions for harmonized decision-making. 

On this MEAs Day, the lessons from MIDAs underscores the value of collaboration in supporting coherent and effective conservation outcomes between the international instruments. IUCN, in close collaboration with Global Research and Training Centre for Internationally Designated Areas (GCIDA) – a UNESCO Category 2 Centre – and the IUCN Asia Regional Office, with generous support from an IUCN Member, the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, and the Republic of Korea, reaffirms its commitment to fostering such cooperation across frameworks with the aim of contributing to more integrated and impactful conservation outcomes.

Learn more about IUCN’s work on Internationally Designated Areas here.