IUCN

31 October 2025 News / Gene Drives / IUCN / Nature conservation
IUCN deeply split over genetically engineering nature 

At the World Con­ser­va­tion Con­gress in Abu Dhabi, the Inter­na­tion­al Union for Con­ser­va­tion of Nature (IUCN) nar­row­ly vot­ed against a “pre­cau­tion­ary defer­ment” of the release of genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered wild species into nat­ur­al ecosys­tems. How­ev­er, a slim major­i­ty of IUCN mem­bers sup­port­ed a call for “addi­tion­al pre­cau­tion­ary safe­guards” on such releas­es. The Con­gress exposed deep divi­sions with­in the con­ser­va­tion com­mu­ni­ty over whether genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered wild organ­isms should be released into nature.

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15 October 2025 / Gene Drives / IUCN / Nature conservation
IUCN backs risky genetic engineering in nature, rejects call for precaution

Abu Dhabi, 15 Octo­ber 2025 — In a wide­ly antic­i­pat­ed but deeply con­cern­ing deci­sion, IUCN mem­bers have implic­it­ly endorsed the use of genet­ic engi­neer­ing in nature con­ser­va­tion — despite insuf­fi­cient sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence and the absence of effec­tive reg­u­la­tions to man­age its risks.

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8 October 2025 News / Gene Drives / IUCN / Nature conservation
NGOs, scientists, and beekeepers call for IUCN moratorium on genetically engineering nature

At the IUCN World Con­gress start­ing tomor­row, 9 Octo­ber, del­e­gates will be asked to vote on a motion call­ing for a mora­to­ri­um on genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered wild species. The deci­sion will test whether IUCN upholds the Pre­cau­tion­ary Prin­ci­ple and demon­strates lead­er­ship in pro­tect­ing and restor­ing nature – or whether it opens the door to exper­i­men­tal tech­nolo­gies that risk under­min­ing con­ser­va­tion efforts and erod­ing pub­lic trust.

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21 May 2025 News / Gene Drives / IUCN
IUCN prepares decisions on genetic engineering

Should genet­ic engi­neer­ing be used to kill off inva­sive species, or make corals resis­tant to warmer waters? Should endan­gered species be genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied in the name of nature con­ser­va­tion? The con­tro­ver­sy over the role of genet­ic engi­neer­ing in nature con­ser­va­tion con­tin­ues to inten­si­fy. Two motions have been sub­mit­ted for adop­tion by the World Con­gress of the Inter­na­tion­al Union for Con­ser­va­tion of Nature (IUCN) lat­er this year.

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9 October 2024 News / Gene Drives / IUCN
IUCN regional meeting avoids discussion on genetic engineering in natural ecosystems

As sci­en­tists and envi­ron­men­tal­ists grap­ple with syn­thet­ic biol­o­gy, a cru­cial debate failed to mate­ri­al­ize at the IUCN region­al meet­ing in Bruges, Bel­gium. Instead, the meet­ing revealed sig­nif­i­cant con­cerns about the organization’s pol­i­cy devel­op­ment process on syn­thet­ic biol­o­gy and its impli­ca­tions for nature con­ser­va­tion.

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12 September 2021 / Gene Drives / IUCN
Genetic engineering challenged at nature conservation congress

Mar­seille, France — On Fri­day, 10.09.2021, the Inter­na­tion­al Union for the Con­ser­va­tion of Nature (IUCN)’s World Con­gress vot­ed on a con­tro­ver­sial motion ques­tion­ing the use of genet­ic engi­neer­ing in nature con­ser­va­tion. The IUCN mem­bers approved this land­mark motion, which paves the way for a glob­al dia­logue on the future of new forms of this engi­neer­ing, called syn­thet­ic biol­o­gy, includ­ing gene dri­ve organ­isms.

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