World Wilderness Congress

Since 1976, the World Wilderness Congress, typically held every four years, has helped nature defenders from around the world gather to develop new strategies and actions for our wild Earth.

Beginning in South Africa as a partnership between famed South African game ranger, Ian Player, and his Zulu mentor, Magqubu Ntombela, the Congress was convened to bring together wilderness advocates from around the world to address the root cause of the environmental crisis: a broken relationship with nature. Today, the World Wilderness Congress is the longest-running, public environmental forum to build awareness and support for wilderness, and strengthen wilderness policy from grassroots decision-making to national policy.

Some of the many tangible outcomes achieved as a global wilderness community:

• Initiating the process that would ultimately lead to the World Bank’s Global Environmental Facility.
• Launched Nature Needs Half, the global vision and practice to protect and restore half of wild nature on land and sea, the necessary human-nature relationship called for by both contemporary and traditional science.
• Enhanced collaboration among Indigenous communities, conservation practitioners, and global organizations.
• Youth Empowerment through the inclusion of youth voices highlighting their role as future leaders of wilderness preservation.
• Numerous policy advancements through the passing of resolutions which set new benchmarks for wilderness conservation, emphasizing justice and Indigenous sovereignty.