Greta Leeb
The Stage is Set for International Community to Prioritize Environmental Whistleblowers
2025 has proven to be a turning point in the establishment of strong oversight for environmental whistleblowers. After the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress (WCC) in Emirati capital Abu Dhabi—and thanks in large part to the ongoing efforts of the National Whistleblower Center’s Scott Hajost—whistleblower protections have been incorporated into five WCC resolutions, the IUCN 20 year vision, the IUCN four year program, and in the mandates of the World Commission on Environmental Law and Commission on Education and Communication (CEC). The Abu Dhabi Call to Action also addresses the urgent need for protection of environmental defenders—a category in which whistleblowers decisively fall. Combating crimes that affect the environment (CAE) is now firmly anchored in the IUCN mission after this year’s WCC. The stage is well set for environmental governance to play a role in the upcoming Doha UN Convention Against Corruption Conference of State Parties in early December and the Abu Dhabi UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in April 2026.
Scott Hajost, Senior Environmental Policy Advisor to the National Whistleblower Center (NWC), worked tirelessly to embed whistleblowers into international accords. Hajost (who is also IUCN US National Committee Vice-Chair) representing the NWC, collaborated with the Nature Crime Alliance World Resources (Alliance) based secretariat and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). The NWC and WCS are members of the Alliance.
Hajost worked closely with Elodie Parrat (senior government Engagement Manager at the Nature Crime Alliance secretariat), Charles “Chip” Barber (Director of the Alliance), and Susan Lieberman (Vice President of International Policy at the WCS), to draft a motion on CAE, and offer input on the 20 and four year programs.
As the group drafted a motion on CAE, the French government and the International Council of Environmental Law (ICEL) were drafting a similar proposal. These two motions were merged and, after a near-unanimous vote by the IUCN Members’ Assembly, became resolution 48/52 on Crimes that Affect the Environment.
In a statement on the resolution, Dr. Lieberman said, “Governments and civil society must recognize that nature crime is not a peripheral issue. It strikes at the heart of conservation, governance, and human rights. This motion is an essential step toward building a global response equal to the scale of the threat.”
Hajost views the collaboration between the Alliance, WCS, and NWC as vital to the promotion of environmental whistleblower protections. Fighting environmental crime requires multi-sectoral participation. Everyone, from governments to civil society to whistleblowers, are key to detecting, deterring, and prosecuting CAE. Hajost emphasized that the Alliance was the “glue” that held together such a large variety of actors. It was these partnerships, he continued, that “allowed the NWC to operate and really expand its reach.”
To continue working towards strong environmental whistleblower protections, Hajost said, “We started reaching out to a larger membership, including partners in the Nature Crime Alliance, members of the IUCN, to provide a larger critical mass to promote and support this motion.”
Whistleblowers, as discussed in past WNN reporting, are recognized in two other NWC supported resolutions. These include #49 on Strengthening Civic Spaces to Fulfill the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and #126 on Advancing Citizen Science to Support and Democratize Conservation. Two other resolutions, not NWC affiliated, included support for whistleblowers, demonstrating the increasing global awareness of their status as crucial to conservation. One of them, #104 on Safeguarding Biodiversity and Human Rights in Energy Transition Mineral Governance demands that state governments not tolerate attacks on human rights defenders and whistleblowers. The other resolution, #33 on Port State Measures Regarding Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing, recognizes the role of whistleblowers in protecting global fisheries.
The resolutions are not yet published on the IUCN Congress resolutions platform, but all have been adopted and are in effect. Once officially published, the enumerations will change.
Together these resolutions and the IUCN program ensure that CAE and environmental whistleblowers are a high priority for IUCN. Reports from insiders allow authorities to crack down on the crimes that have the greatest impact on the ecosystem, including illegal logging, illegal fishing, wildlife trafficking, illegal mining, and even illegal dumping and polluting.
A particularly important aim of the three NWC resolutions has been to reiterate and emphasize Resolution 115 on Protecting Human and Peoples’ Rights Defenders and Whistleblowers. This motion was passed during the 2021WCC that took place in Marseille, France.
To further this goal, Resolutions 49 on Civic Spaces included a specific request to the Director General that Resolution 115 be upheld. According to Hajost, this resolution was the result of collaboration among members of the IUCN Civic Spaces Task Force. This group, chaired by Ernesto Herrera, Executive Director of Reforestamos México, worked to ensure the resolution highlighted the role of whistleblowers and environmental defenders within civic spaces ecosystem. Herrera is also the newly elected Chair of the IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy, which plays an important role in protecting whistleblowers.
It is evident that the fight to embed whistleblower protections into international environmental governance has widespread support and hearty legal foundations. The future of environmental defense must rely on these resolutions as supports for future efforts.
The IUCN has a clear plan for what these future efforts will be. The 20 year vision, four year plan, and Call to Action all sketch a clear picture of continued conservation, human rights defense, and, most notably, whistleblower protections. Further still, the new mandates of the WCEL and CEC outline similar aims. As before, much of the language on environmental crime and whistleblowers is the result of tireless effort by Hajost, the Alliance, and the WCS.
The 20 year vision, entitled Unite for Nature on the path to 2045, lays out the IUCN’s plan to align short term goals with sustainable, long term ambitions. It highlights a “rights- and equity-based approach to conservation action,” meaning whistleblowers and environmental defenders—the people most at risk of losing their right to speak and protest—must be uplifted. Unite for Nature clearly recognizes this: “Environmental justice mandates the right to ethical and responsible access to and use of land, territories, species and renewable resources, and embeds the right to life, the right to speak, and to be heard by environmental defenders and whistleblowers.”
Nature 2030: One nature, one future, the blueprint for the next four years, is even more insistent on safeguarding whistleblowers. Measures “to ensure the full protection of environmental human rights defenders and whistleblowers must be taken. There needs to be a response to the long-standing call for effective human rights due diligence, associated grievance mechanisms and for dealing with illegal and criminal activities through enhanced regulation and enhancement in criminal justice and application of the rule of law.” It is evident that CAE is well-recognized as an urgent problem for conservationists and nature defenders.
Crucially, Nature 2030 calls for the incentivization for informants: states must work “to strengthen legal and policy frameworks, including whistleblowers protection and reward laws, to more effectively prevent and combat crimes that affect the environment at national and international levels.” Reward laws are highly effective in encouraging potential informants to report on illicit activities, especially in states where whistleblowers face social, financial, and physical retaliation for their bravery.
All these documents—the resolutions, program, and vision—further anchor whistleblowers into the work of the IUCN and will help in promoting the role of whistleblower s in other international organizations and agreements. There is hope for the future.
The results of the IUCN offer concrete steps towards a brighter, healthier world. Upcoming conventions and congresses, including the UN Convention Against Corruption, will continue to address environmental whistleblower protections and work towards strengthening enforcement of CAE.
“I choose to be optimistic,” said Hajost, “and I tell people that all the time: no matter what it is, there’s something positive you can do.”
