IUCN Ressolution: Renunciation of the Doctrine of Discovery to Rediscover care for Mother Earth

The IUCN World Conservation Congress, at its session in Marseille, France:

1. RENOUNCES the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ in all its manifestations;

2. REQUESTS Council, in alignment with the IUCN Programme 2021–2024, to establish an IUCN Truth and Reconciliation Working Group, to explore and explain best practices for involving Indigenous Peoples in co-stewardship of protected natural areas, conservation of nature, and sustainable use of species, and other appropriate activities for the care of Mother Earth;

3. URGES all states to repeal all legal vestiges of the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’, and to consider establishing truth and reconciliation commissions though which the story of the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ in all its manifestations can be made known and pathways toward justice discovered; and

4. INVITES the leaders of all religions to repeal and renounce their past proclamations that legitimised the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ in all its manifestations, and FURTHER URGES the leaders of all nations to promote new paradigms in conservation, where the ancestral knowledge of Indigenous Peoples is incorporated, in the struggle to conserve the nature of the Earth.