IUCN helps the world find pragmatic solutions to our most pressing environment and development challenges. It supports scientific research, manages field projects all over the world and brings governments, non-government organizations, United Nations agencies, companies and local communities together to develop and implement policy, laws and best practice.

IUCN is the world’s oldest and largest global environmental network - a democratic membership union with more than 1,000 government and NGO member organizations, and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160 countries.

IUCN’s work is supported by more than 1,000 professional staff in 60 offices and hundreds of partners in public, NGO and private sectors around the world. The Union’s headquarters are located in Gland, near Geneva, Switzerland.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was signed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992 and entered into force on 29 December 1993. It is the first global agreement to cover all aspects of biological diversity: the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources.

The Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (SCBD), based in Montreal, Canada, was established to support the goals of the Convention. Its primary functions are to organize meetings, prepare reports, assist member governments in the implementation of the various programmes of work, coordinate with other international organizations and collect and disseminate information.

As an environmental treaty under the aegis of the United Nations Environment Programme, CMS provides a global platform for the conservation and sustainable use of migratory animals and their habitats. CMS brings together the States through which migratory animals pass, the Range States, and lays the legal foundation for internationally coordinated conservation measures throughout a migratory range.

As the only global convention specializing in the conservation of migratory species, their habitats and migration routes, CMS complements and co-operates with a number of other international organizations, NGOs and partners in the media as well as in the corporate sector.

The UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) is a collaboration between the United Nations Environment Programme, the world's foremost intergovernmental environmental organization, and WCMC (UK), a UK-based charity. UNEP-WCMC is UNEP’s specialist biodiversity assessment arm, and the Centre for UNEP’s collaboration with WCMC 2000.

The Centre’s goal is to provide authoritative, relevant and timely information for countries, multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), organizations and companies to use in the development and implementation of their policies and decisions. To help achieve this, the Center aims to be an internationally recognized Centre of Excellence and the partner of choice for the expert synthesis, analysis and dissemination of knowledge about global biodiversity and ecosystem services.