IUCN Motion 004: Trails and Conservation

IUCN. Created  in 1948, IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature,  is now the world’s largest and most diverse environmental  network, harnessing the knowledge, resources and reach of its more than 1,400 Member organizations and seven Commissions composed of 17,000 expert individuals. This diversity and  expertise makes IUCN the global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it.

The Congress. Every four years IUCN holds the World Conservation Congress, a major event that includes a forum and an exhibition, as well as an assembly in which IUCN Members 

vote to approve motions which, once adopted,  become Resolutions and Recommendations,  and therefore the body of IUCN’s general policy.

The Trails and conservation motion has been submitted for consideration at the IUCN World Conservation Congress to be held in October 2025 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. 

The proponent. InterEnvironment Institute is the proponent of the Trails and conservation motion. The Institute has been a Member of IUCN since 1980 (click here for details) and has served as the secretariat for an IUCN Commission, a specialist group of another Commission, and IUCN projects. 

Nine other IUCN Members are cosponsors of the motion.  

[Above: 300 km of long-distance trails run through the Country Parks of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China. The parks cover almost 40 percent of Hong Kong's 1,100 sq km of otherwise developed territory, which has a population of 7.5 million.] 

Rationale

Trails can be powerful tools for protecting biodiversity, but have received little attention from IUCN. The purpose of this motion, Trails and conservation, is to formally acknowledge the importance of trails and ecological trail corridors as conservation tools and set out next steps for providing guidance on them.

Origins

This effort started in the Urban Conservation Strategies Specialist Group of IUCN's World Commission on Protected Areas. Looking for effective and innovative models of conservation in metropolitan areas, leaders of the group came across several kinds of trails and included them in its flagship publication, Urban protected areas: Profiles and best practice guidelines (2014). They pointed out that for urban people such trails can be strong psychological, as well as physical, connectors to the natural world.

Trails and Conservation Working Group

The next step was setting up the Trails and Conservation Working Group, in 2019. Its terms of reference are “To promote a holistic vision of long-distance trails, not only as recreational infrastructure but as conservation tools that link urban, rural and wild; shape new conservationists; and serve as connectors to places representing cultural, spiritual, aesthetic and moral values.” In addition, it is tasked with examining “connections between such trails and animals and plants, e.g., in terms of wildlife corridors, human-wildlife conflict, invasive species and zoonotic disease.” The working group’s remit now extends to trails generally, not only long-distance ones. 

Leadership

The Trails and Conservation Working Group is led by Pedro da Cunha e Menezes, a Brazilian career Diplomat who is currently seconded to Brazil’s Environment Ministry and directs its Department of Protected Areas. His responsibilities include the Brazilian Network of Long-distance Trails. In a previous assignment, he developed a popular 200-km trail connecting mountainous protected areas surrounding Rio de Janeiro. Other members of the steering committee are experts from Hong Kong, Portugal, South Africa and the United States. 

Actions called for in the motion

The work called for in the motion is cross-cutting. It will be carried out by the WCPA Trails and Conservation Working Group in close cooperation with the World Trails Network, an independent NGO based in Geneva,  Switzerland, that helped draft the motion and 

works to protect and promote sustainable trails globally. 

The motion sponsor, InterEnvironment Institute, will provide administrative and research support. Other parts of IUCN will be consulted; among others, these include WCPA groups on tourism, connectivity, cultural and spiritual values, climate change, health and well-being, mountains and transboundary conservation, the Dark Skies Advisory Group, and the SSC groups on human-wildlife interactions and invasive species.

The Brazilian Government is expected to provide in-kind support including for a trail-related exhibit and panel discussion at the 2025 World Conservation Congress.  

-- Ted Trzyna 

> President, InterEnvironment Institute

> Senior Advisor, cofounder, and former Chair, 2003-2024, IUCN WCPA Urban Conservation Strategies Specialist Group

NOTES

SSC: IUCN Species Survival Commission

WCC: IUCN World Conservation Congress

WCPA: IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas

CONTACT

Ted Trzyna, InterEnvironment Institute, tedtrzyna [at] gmail.com

Pedro da Cunha e Menezes, Brasilia, Brazil, cunhaemenezes [at] gmail.com

[Above: Along the Pacific Crest Trail in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. The PCT runs for 4,265 km from Canada to Mexico through the U.S. states of Washington. Oregon, and California.]

To download a PDF, scroll to bottom of page.

TRAILS AND CONSERVATION  (MOTION 004)

Proponent: InterEnvironment Institute

CONSIDERING that trails are the customary routes people use to travel through roadless parts of protected and conserved areas and other natural and semi-natural landscapes;

RECOGNIZING that visitors to such areas use trails for recreation, nature study, scientific research, socializing and accessing scenic, cultural and spiritual sites; by conservation staff for interpretation, education, monitoring and maintenance; and by law enforcement and emergency responders;

RECOGNIZING FURTHER that trails are used by people traveling on foot and, where permitted, by bicycle, by riding horses and other animals, and by operating motor vehicles;

AWARE that connectivity among protected and conserved areas and other intact ecosystems is essential for conserving biodiversity, adapting to climate change and resisting disease, and that ecological corridors are a key method of making such connections, as described in the IUCN publication Conserving connectivity through ecological networks and corridors (2020);

RECALLING that the critical role of ecological corridors is recognized in:

IUCN Resolution 7.073, Ecological connectivity conservation in the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework: from local to international levels (2020);

CBD Decision 15/4, Global Biodiversity Framework (2022), Target 3; and

CMS Resolution 14.16, Ecological connectivity (2024);

NOTING that ecological corridors along trails provide such connectivity;

NOTING FURTHER that such corridors offer opportunities for trailside interpretation and education;

AWARE that trails in ecological corridors include those running through metropolitan greenbelts and those connecting urban, rural and natural places, as well as trails through remote areas;

CONCERNED that many ecological trail corridors lack formal protection and are threatened by urban sprawl and expanding road networks; and

NOTING that IUCN has not given adequate attention to trails or ecological trail corridors;

The IUCN World Conservation Congress, at its sesson in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 9-15 October 2025:

1. CALLS ON WCPA to explore means of providing guidance on using trails and ecological trail corridors as conservation tools, including by gathering information, convening discussions and producing case studies and recommendations;

2. REQUESTS WCPA to conduct this work in cooperation with the IUCN Secretariat, other IUCN Commissions, IUCN Members, intergovernmental organizations, and other governmental agencies and NGOs, including the World Trails Network;

3. REQUESTS WCPA to incorporate in this endeavor methods for:

a. Planning, creating, restoring, protecting and securing legal recognition of trails and ecological trail corridors;

b. Interpretation and education, including wildlife viewing, use of trailside examples to demonstrate consequences and expected effects of climate change, and websites and apps that include in-depth natural history, conservation and cultural information on the area;

c. Preventing and lessening the harm trails may cause to people and the surrounding natural environment, in cooperation with SSC (regarding human-wildlife interactions and invasive species) and the One Health initiative, particularly regarding zoonotic diseases; and

d. Managing conflicts among kinds of trail users, ranging from hikers and bicyclists to horseback riders and drivers of all-terrain vehicles.

NOTES

CBD: Convention of Biological Diversity

CMS: Convention on Migratory Species

SSC: IUCN Species Survival Commission

WCPA: IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas

Otter Trail, South Africa. Opened  in 1868, the Otter Trail is entirely within Garden Route National Park.  A coastal trail, it has many steep ups and downs along its 40 km route. Reservations are required to make the hike, which takes five days, staying in huts for four nights.

Rota Vincentina, Portugal. This  is a network of over 1,000 km of hiking and mountain biking trails in southwestern Portugal. One long-distance trail runs along the  Atlantic Ocean coast; another follows a historic, mainly inland route.  Along the way are farms, towns, and villages, as well as open country.

Trilha Transcarioca, Brazil. Completed  in 2017, the Transcarioca stretches for 200 km through several mountainous protected areas around Rio de Janeiro that are within a World Heritage Site called the Carioca Landscapes between the Mountain and the Sea. (Carioca is an adjective in Brazilian Portuguese that refers to anything related to Rio de Janeiro.)