Shortly before launching this site, we hesitated a lot (mainly because of the costs that this would entail) to go to the World Conservation Congress which was being held for the first time in France. (It was initially scheduled for June 2020 but postponed until the 3rd to the 11th of September 2021 due to the covid-19 pandemic.) After announcing to those around us that we would not be going, almost at the last moment we decided that in the end we would go! We are going there even though French President Emmanuel Macron, who was there, left after making a disappointing inaugural speech) (1) and the American actor Harrison Ford also took the floor to deliver a rant at the opening of the Congress. (2)

Before leaving for Marseille we rounded up the tent that would shelter us and surprisingly not the rest of the equipment. As a result, during the 4 nights of our stay--our inflatable mattresses having a leak--we slept on the pebbles of the Aubagne campsite (very well by the way): "Le Garlaban" (from the name of the massif made famous in the works by Marcel Pagnol).

The night's rest wasn't ideal but we were still sufficiently awake to see what was happening at the foot of the velodrome where the summit was taking place. The price of registrations being stratospheric--780 euros for the entrance to the forum and 130 euros to follow what is going on online--we therefore had to be content with the space open to the public as we did during some of the COPs.

This is the first time that something has been planned to welcome the general public during this event organized by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). “Every four years the Congress enables IUCN's 1,400 Member organizations, including States, civil society and indigenous peoples, to democratically determine the most pressing nature conservation issues, as well as the actions to be taken to respond to them." (3)

Like the few people present, we strolled among the various stands, snacks, photo exhibitions, the butterfly aviary outside, and through the "Palais Phocéen" (Hall 3) and the "Palais de la Méditerranée" (Hall 2) in the midst of school outings on weekdays and families on Saturdays, and saw and photographed some personalities: a chief cacique with his feather headdress, Benoît Payan (mayor of Marseille), Roxana Maracineanu (Minister of Sports), Bérangère Abba (Secretary of State to the Minister of Ecological Transition in charge of Biodiversity), Cédric Villani (mathematician, deputy and spokesperson for Delphine Batho then candidate for the primary of environmentalists for the presidential election), France Gamerre (President of honor of Generation Ecology) …

Our attendance at COPs has accustomed us to the fact that the last days are always the most intense. On Thursday, tired as we were by the trip and the 1st night sleeping like fakirs, we concentrated on Hall 2 which houses the Espace Générations Nature (4) and on Friday, as soon as we arrived, we hurried towards the Palais Phocéen which we found closed! A man among the non-profit attendees told us a bitterly, "The fact that the officials left demonstrates that it was really all about entre-soi, and it's a shame. This may have been the only time in our lives that we had a chance to attend such a summit."

At the same time we see on social networks that activists we usually follow, such as Extinction Rebellion (XR), ANV-COP21 and others, are organising civil disobedience actions at the Marignane airport or at the Mucem (The Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations) for example and even a "counter-summit" in a park but the information reached us too late. This is what was posted on the facebook account of XR Marseille on the evening of Friday 10th:

"This event organized with ANV-COP21 Marseille and with speakers from Notre Affaire à Tous, Pollinis or Aix-Marseille University was an opportunity to explore other ways to really weigh in the fight for the preservation of life. Indeed, we consider that the actions proposed by the IUCN are insufficient in the face of the current emergency. Crimes against life can be qualified as ecocide. The multiplication of congresses, COPs and declarations of intent will never be enough without real binding measures to overturn this deadly system at the service of private interests." (5)

Dejected, we set off for the Calanques, the photo of which illustrated the poster for the 2020 World Conservation Congress (2021). Overcrowded, we learn in the press that the Calanques National Park is in danger (6). Then we went to le Var where at the end of August a "mega-fire" (7) that lasted more than 10 days "burned more than 7000 hectares of forest, caused the death of two people, and required the evacuation of thousands of residents." (8) "The Plaine des Maures nature reserve is half destroyed. The site was home to 250 protected species. It is the most serious fire in France since 2003, but also an ecological disaster" headlines in national news. (9) Among the many protected species, "the emblematic Hermann's tortoise [...], which now lives only in this massif and in Corsica, is often mentioned [...]. A remnant of prehistoric times, it is said to have survived for 35 million years." (10)

Even if the origin of the fire is human, the link with climate change has been made by specialists and the head of state. An example in the press about this natural disaster:

"For the deputy director for the protection of forests against fire, global warming 'lengthens the period of fire risk'. He gives the example of the Aude and the west Pyrenees where there is 'no rain since May' and 'an increase in the number of fires in October over the last ten years'. Moreover, for Rémi Savazzi, these risks are no longer confined to the southeast and southwest. 'We are starting to have fires just about everywhere in France. Especially in 2019 and 2020, when we had exceptional droughts throughout the country', he warns." (11)

During a summer marked by extreme weather events around the world (Canada, United States, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Siberia, Algeria, Morocco, etc.), at the beginning of the same month of August, group-1 of the IPCC had just published its report in the context of the preparation of the 6th global report:

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes in its report released on August 9, 2021, that the climate is changing around the world and faster than expected. Even with limited global warming, natural disasters are expected to increase. […] The climate forecasts are very pessimistic and damning, just three months before the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. […] In its report, the IPCC demonstrates that human activity is 'unequivocally' responsible for global warming, which is causing 'rapid changes in the atmosphere, oceans, cryosphere and biosphere'. Previous reports described human responsibility as 'extremely likely'." (12)

Yesterday, making a quick choice among the photos to illustrate this post, we were struck by the resemblance of the reddish color of the trees (after the fire) with the landscapes we saw in central Chile (due to drought), and even with those in the African savannah.

Here is the conclusion of this Congress which was meant to prepare for the United Nations Summit on the conservation of biodiversity (COP15) in Kunming, China (canceled and postponed to 2022 after having already been postponed since October 2020, again because of covid-19):

"The IUCN Congress adopted its final declaration, the Marseille Manifesto, focused on three main themes: a post-2020 framework for the conservation of biodiversity that is transformative, effective and ambitious (which will be adopted by States at the COP 15 Biodiversity in May 2022); the importance of nature in the global post-pandemic recovery and the need to transform the global financial system's direct investment towards projects that are positive for nature; the fight against climate change to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and to develop solutions based on nature." (13)

In the end, we do not regret our trip to Marseille, because in addition to the little subject that we were able to do on site (and that we will put online in the future), it allowed us to see that the need and the energy to make photo reports (after all this time locked to our screens for the construction of this site) has not left us, on the contrary! Very focused on the climate for several years, it was important for us to continue to document as many aspects as possible of the central issue of biodiversity conservation, and what is being done (or not done) to combat the sixth mass extinction that accelerates, due to human activity. (14)

We are currently preparing our departure for COP26 in Glasgow. It's not easy, there are strict conditions and luckily our English neighbor is helping us (Thanks to her!) to understand the Covid test formalities before and once there. Normally this "Conference of the Parties" should not be canceled now, even if it was recently demanded by 1,500 NGOs because of the inequality of access to immunization of the participating countries:

"An in-person COP in early November would de facto exclude many government delegates, civil society activists and journalists, especially from southern countries, many of whom are on the UK's 'Covid red list', according to the organizations' statement. They denounced this 'exclusion' in discussions on subjects of capital importance for the future of humanity, in particular for the poorest countries, on the front line against global warming." (15)

Our next post will therefore probably be from Glasgow. Until then, for those who are interested, you can see, or revisit, our reports devoted to the COPs since that of Paris in 2015.

To better understand the issues, see below the internet links to two programmes among many others concerning IUCN (one didactic on the 6th mass extinction, the other a debate on the financialisation of nature) and a scathing column by Stéphane Foucart, a journalist from Le Monde who covers environmental sciences, which begins as follows:

"The French government has just removed the last remaining doubts about the real usefulness of the World Congress of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which was held in Marseille from 3 to 11 September. Four days after its closure, the ink was not yet dry on the speeches and the emphasis of the declarations had not quite subsided when the Ministry of Ecological Transition announced that it was putting out for consultation several draft decrees to authorise the trapping of some 115,000 birds (skylarks, lapwings, golden plovers, etc.) by means of so-called "traditional" hunting methods. However, these methods are based on techniques that do not comply with European law and were ruled illegal by the Council of State on 6 August. [...]"

https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2021/09/19/l-enjeu-environnemental-est-desormais-au-c-ur-d-une-rupture-du-pacte-democratique_6095186_3232.html

https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/le-temps-du-debat-d-ete/le-temps-du-debat-emission-du-jeudi-09-septembre-2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw1y4Gaj6G0

(1) https://www.liberation.fr/environnement/a-marseille-macron-se-place-au-sommet-de-la-nature-20210903_IYCHJIPSKJBOXCV6H3MTRZT66A/
(2) https://madeinmarseille.net/97914-le-plaidoyer-pour-la-planete-et-la-jeunesse-dharrison-ford-en-visite-a-marseille-pour-luicn/
(3) https://www.iucn.org/fr/news/secretariat/202012/le-congres-mondial-de-la-nature-de-luicn-se-tiendra-du-3-au-11-septembre-2021-a-marseille
(4) https://www.iucncongress2020.org/fr/france/espaces-generations-nature

(5) https://www.facebook.com/XRMarseille
(6) https://reporterre.net/Le-QR-code-s-invite-dans-les-calanques-surfrequentees-de-Marseille
(7) https://www.francetvinfo.fr/faits-divers/incendie/incendies-dans-le-var-il-faut-prendre-la-mesure-qu-on-rentre-dans-un-nouveau-regime-de-feu-explique-une-universitaire_4740977.html
(8) https://www.francetvinfo.fr/faits-divers/incendie/incendie-dans-le-var-le-feu-qui-a-ravage-plus-de-7-000-hectares-de-foret-et-coute-la-vie-a-deux-personnes-est-a-present-maitrise-annoncent-les-pompiers_4746337.html
(9) https://www.francetvinfo.fr/faits-divers/incendie/var-le-massif-des-maures-a-ete-devaste-par-les-incendies_4741229.html
(10) https://www.ouest-france.fr/sciences/animaux/incendie-dans-le-var-une-course-contre-la-montre-pour-sauver-la-tortue-d-hermann-7392531
(11) https://www.europe1.fr/societe/incendie-dans-le-var-le-rechauffement-climatique-allonge-la-duree-des-saisons-a-risques-4062525
(12) https://www.vie-publique.fr/en-bref/281114-rapport-du-giec-sur-le-climat-un-constat-alarmant
(13) https://uicn.fr/congres-de-luicn-bilan/
(14) https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/environnement-la-sixieme-extinction-de-masse-saccelere-cause-de-lhomme-avertit-la-science
(15) https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2021/09/07/covid-19-1-500-ong-reclament-le-report-de-la-cop26-sur-le-climat-prevue-en-novembre_6093741_3244.html

(All the links accessed on October 7, 2021)

PS: To our dear cousins in Marseille! The reason we unfortunately did not come to visit you as usual is because of the virus. Having run into so many people at this Congress, we didn't feel we should come to embrace you.

Shortly before launching this site, we hesitated a lot (mainly because of the costs that this would entail) to go to the World Conservation Congress which was being held for the first time in France. (It was initially scheduled for June 2020 but postponed until the 3rd to the 11th of September 2021 due to the covid-19 pandemic.) After announcing to those around us that we would not be going, almost at the last moment we decided that in the end we would go! We are going there even though French President Emmanuel Macron, who was there, left after making a disappointing inaugural speech) (1) and the American actor Harrison Ford also took the floor to deliver a rant at the opening of the Congress. (2)