IUCN's work is driven by two features of life today: Global production and consumption patterns are destroying our life support system – nature – at persistent and dangerously high rates.

And people, communities, governments and private actors are under-using the potential power of nature and the solutions it can provide to global challenges in fields such as climate change, food security, social and economic development. IUCN calls these nature-based solutions.

Our work builds upon IUCN’s niche as the world’s authority on biodiversity conservation, nature-based solutions and related environmental governance. It has three key areas:

Valuing and conserving nature enhances IUCN’s heartland work on biodiversity conservation, emphasizing both tangible and intangible values of nature.

Effective and equitable governance of nature’s use consolidates IUCN’s work on people-nature relations, rights and responsibilities, and the political economy of nature.

Deploying nature-based solutions to global challenges in climate, food and development expands IUCN’s work on nature’s contribution to tackling problems of sustainable development, particularly in climate change, food security and social and economic development.