Maintaining, enhancing and restoring ecological integrity in conservation planning and action

This IUCN WCPA Technical Report results from the deliberations of an IUCN Task Force on Ecological Integrity, and aims to provide guidance on how to successfully incorporate ecological integrity into conservation policy and practice. Ecological integrity, together with several related concepts (e.g. ecosystem integrity, ecological condition, ecological degradation, resilience, ecosystem health), are grounded in a long history in the scientific literature. Ecological integrity is referenced in multilateral environmental agreements, especially those derived from the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development: the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). In particular, the CBD’s Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) systematically refers to ecological integrity in its goals and targets. Ecological and ecosystem integrity are also widely referenced in the IUCN 2026–2029 programme, ‘Nature 2030. One nature, one future’, as well as several IUCN Standards (including the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems Standard, the Key Biodiversity Area Standard,
Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions, and the FAO-IUCN Standards of Practice to Guide Ecosystem Restoration).