News | Jul 2025
Reflecting on 25 years of working together to deliver impact for nature and people
It was 25 years ago this month that the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) was integrated into UNEP as a specialist Centre for biodiversity, operating through a collaboration between UNEP and the UK-registered charity WCMC. Before that, the Centre operated as a three-way partnership between UNEP, the International Union of Conservation for Nature (IUCN) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Over the last 25 years, the scope of the Centre’s work has broadened considerably, and we have grown to an organization of over 250, but our ambition has been constant: to provide biodiversity-related services and support across UNEP and the wider UN and its Member States, and to others in the non-governmental and private sectors.
UNEP-WCMC has had an important long-standing role supporting key UN conventions, including the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), alongside conventions on climate change, land degradation and wetlands, amongst others. Recent support ranges from nature indicator expertise for monitoring progress towards the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, to co-authoring landmark reports such as the State of the World’s Migratory Species Report and curating datasets and tools used by countries as they develop and deliver on national biodiversity strategies. Our on-the-ground presence at international meetings, our hosting of educational events and our technical support with convention secretariats and Parties is at the core of our work.
In recent years, we’ve increasingly brought biodiversity-related expertise to bear on broader sustainability issues. The Trade, Development and Environment Hub (Trade Hub) was a five-year initiative that significantly advanced applied research on the sustainability of trade in agricultural commodities, wild meat and wildlife. Operating as a partnership between more than 50 organizations across 15 different countries, the initiative saw research conducted in ten countries, with important contributions to policy and on-the-ground practice. Two major achievements of the TRADE Hub were informing the European Union Regulation on Deforestation-free Products and providing a platform for the voices of smallholder farmers.
Over the last 25 years, UNEP-WCMC has worked with private sector partners to achieve better outcomes for nature. Through the Proteus Partnership, UNEP-WCMC has supported over 20 multinationals with their decision-making for nature, strengthening capacity to use the best available global data on protected areas, threatened species and important biodiversity areas. Building on this engagement, UNEP-WCMC convenes leaders from business, finance and conservation at the annual Nature Action Dialogues. In 2025, we brought together over 250 participants to share and catalyze greater action, including in the context of the forthcoming business and biodiversity assessment of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), for which staff at UNEP-WCMC provide leadership and technical support.
In partnership with Global Canopy and the UNEP Finance Initiative, UNEP-WCMC has developed ENCORE, a tool now used by over 7,500 financial institutions and central banks to understand their nature-related risks and impacts and learn what steps need to be taken for mitigation. In recent years, ENCORE has been increasingly used in standards, reporting and other frameworks, including the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures and the Science Based Targets Network.
The IBAT (Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool) Alliance is a coalition between Birdlife International, Conservation International, IUCN and UNEP-WCMC. Through this alliance, IBAT provides access to the world’s most authoritative global biodiversity data platform, comprising the World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA), World Database of Key Biodiversity Areas and the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Since 2008, IBAT has supported over 30,000 users across industry, conservation and finance in making better-informed decisions for nature. In 2024, IBAT re-invested a record USD 2.5 million back into its three biodiversity datasets, including the WDPA, which is managed by UNEP-WCMC as part of the Protected Planet Initiative.
Protected Planet is the most authoritative resource on protected and conserved areas. The Initiative works with partners in over 240 countries and territories to provide policymakers with the best possible data, strengthen capacity for improved conservation planning and monitor collective progress towards global biodiversity targets. Through the 2024 Protected Planet Report, UNEP-WCMC revealed that urgent action must be taken to reach the global ambition of 30 per cent of the planet being protected by 2030. Just 17.6 per cent of land and 8.4 per cent of coastal and marine areas currently have protected status.
UNEP-WCMC worked with the United Nations Development Programme, the CBD and colleagues across UNEP to develop the UN Biodiversity Lab (UNBL). The initiative has a diverse range of over 2,500 users in 150 countries, from Indigenous Peoples and government officials to academics and communities. The UNBL uses data to enable the creation of maps and data trends that empower its users to make impactful data-driven plans and decisions for nature. In Kenya, UNBL’s mapping technology has been used in improving sustainability efforts, and in the most recent national reports to the CBD, 55 countries used the UNBL to create at least one map.
For the last 25 years the collaboration that underpins UNEP-WCMC's work has enabled the Centre to deliver a core element of UNEP's support to Member States in tackling the biodiversity crisis.
Neville Ash, Director, UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre
Our strong partnerships with donors and technical partners across the world allow us to work together in developing high-quality, accessible data, science and knowledge to support countries, the private sector and international institutions to plan, deliver and monitor their nature-related ambitions.
We look forward to the Centre going from strength to strength, as we work towards our shared vision of a world living in harmony with nature.
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communications@unep-wcmc.org