Green List Standard

IUCN GREEN LIST STANDARD

At the heart of the IUCN Green List Programme is the IUCN Green List Standard: a new global benchmark for protected areas in the 21st Century. In line with IUCN’s core mission of “A just world that values and conserves nature” the aim of the IUCN Green List Programme is to improve the contribution that fairly and effectively managed protected areas make to sustainable development through the conservation of nature and provision of associated social, economic, cultural, and spiritual values. There are at least 250’000 national parks, nature reserves and other protected areas worldwide – covering over 15% of our planet - yet not enough are actually performing to a standard that we should expect. Over the next decade, the IUCN plans to register and improve over 10’000 national parks and nature reserves through the Green List process.

HOW DOES IT WORK

A protected area becomes part of the IUCN Green List Programme when it voluntarily enters the Application Phase. To achieve IUCN Green List status the site must demonstrate and maintain successful implementation of the Standard. In each Phase, the views and consensus of stakeholders and public opinion help to attract attention for the sites ongoing performance.

CONNECT COMMUNITIES

Protected areas from all countries, including from more challenging economies can participate in the Green List Programme using GLS tokens. IUCN will seek to match and mentor participants with aspiring candidates. A Partnership Programme will provide fair access to the IUCN Green List process as well as the ability to channel finances to those sites that are committed to improve, but lacking in resource capacity. This provides an incentive and an ongoing membership in the Green List network while creating a sense of global community.

OPPORTUNITIES AND RISKS

The advantage of a token-based network lies in trust, transparency and transnational transfer of values with low transaction costs, free of corruption, censoring, tampering and fraud. This will help provide fair finance to access the IUCN Green List Programme across the globe, and align network participants towards a common goal. However, as Ethereum is still a very new technology, it is not yet known how fast it will develop and how disruptive the effects will be. The main risk is associated with a changing legal framework and integration of new technology which will take time and effort to achieve more general acceptance and usability.