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Published: Oct 28, 2025 | 9:30 am
By: Elisa Mairet, Jurist and Head of communications, International observatory on Nature's rights
Supervision: Yenny Vega Cárdenas, Lawyer and President, International observatory on Nature's rights
On 15 October 2025, the International Union for Conservation of Nature World Congress concluded after welcoming more than 10,000 participants. This event, held every four years, took place in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. At the International Observatory on Nature’s Rights (IONR), we are extremely pleased to see the prominent place given to the rights of Nature at such a major event. We also want to highlight the initiatives led by communities, experts, and civil society organisations from around the world to defend a new relationship with Nature. This work led to the adoption of several important texts.
Firstly, the adoption of the Abu Dhabi Call to Action, which encourages the global community to intensify action in five areas: Nature and Well-being, Multilateralism, Justice and Inclusion, Knowledge and Innovation, and Resources for Nature and Climate.
Furthermore, the negotiations resulted in no fewer than 148 motions, five of which directly concern the rights of Nature. They call on States to rethink their relationship with Nature and to adapt their legal systems. In this regard, motion 067, “Living in harmony with rivers through the rights of Nature and ecocentric law”, supported by the Earth Law Centre, particularly caught our attention. This follows on from the resolution “Incorporation of the Rights of Nature as the organisational focal point in IUCN’s decision making” adopted in Jeju in 2012 and reminds us that human activities are damaging waterways, which are essential to life on Earth. This degradation affects human rights as well as “the rights and values of those to whom rivers are living entities”, i.e. individuals and peoples who consider lakes, rivers and streams to be living entities with personality, rather than simply resources to be exploited.
Therefore, Motion 067 recognises these communities that play an essential role in protecting aquatic systems and whose relationship with Mother Earth is a source of inspiration that we should aspire to.
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The protection and restoration of their ecosystems are essential for preserving biodiversity and combating climate change. For this, motion 067 includes several recommendations:
- Support these efforts by recognising the rights of Nature, international cooperation and the active participation of indigenous peoples, local communities, young people and women. Their participation combines traditional knowledge, local monitoring and social innovation for collective, effective, sustainable and fair management of ecosystems.
- Harmonise legal instruments and declarations through concerted efforts by the World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL) and the drafters of declarations on the rights of certain ecosystems. This is essential in order to ensure consistency between declarations and to facilitate the implementation of these rights in public policy and water management policy.
- Encourage in-depth reflection by IUCN members on the rights of Nature and the ecocentric approach to encourage the development of innovative solutions inspired by the ancestral practices of indigenous peoples.
- Create synergies between cross-border countries by establishing collaborative commissions for shared ecosystems. A collaborative approach, particularly through a combination of legal, scientific and cultural approaches, is essential if we are to protect “shared” ecosystems effectively and sustainably.
- Increase the financial resources allocated to “Mother Earth centric actions’”. The financial aspect is an important lever for supporting ecosystem protection and conservation projects and enabling the implementation of concrete solutions.
Although non-binding, Motion 067 is an important text for the implementation of concrete solutions based on a profound reform of the relationship between humans and “living beings”. It calls on States to review national and international legal frameworks to incorporate the principles of ecocentric law, while strengthening the IUCN’s leadership role in this paradigm shift. The protection of Nature, and in particular the preservation of aquatic ecosystems, cannot be achieved without the collaboration of all actors in our societies and without questioning the anthropocentric model. By adopting this motion, the IUCN World Congress is once again sending a strong message to the world: it is time to work together to live in “harmony with rivers” and preserve the rights of living beings.