On July 29, 2020, the World Conservation Union (IUCN) Asian Membership Committee meeting was held online for the first time. 44 representatives from 18 countries including China, Pakistan, South Korea, Japan, Nepal, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Bangladesh, regional directors, and Asian office staff attended the meeting. The purpose of this meeting is to summarize the work progress of the past year, to further promote the exchanges among IUCN Asian National Committees/Members, and to discuss how Asian members can make better progress based on understanding the progress of the World Conservation Congress (WCC) in 2021. Effectively participate in the agenda of the conference. Chairperson of the Asian Membership Committee, Secretary-General of the Biodiversity Committee of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Researcher Mark Ping from the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences presided over the meeting.

Chairman Mark Ping first introduced the current situation of IUCN Asia. Currently, there are 278 IUCN members in Asia, of which China (49), Pakistan (41) and India (39) have the largest number of members. In Asia, more than 2,000 natural conservation scientists have participated in the work of IUCN's six scientific committees. It focused on the purpose and main topics of this meeting. Mr. Zhang Xinsheng, Chairman of the IUCN Council, and Ms. Aban Marker Kabraji, Director of the Asian Regional Office, delivered speeches respectively, reviewing the work progress of IUCN in the past year, looking forward to future work priorities and development opportunities, especially the World Conservation Congress to be held in France in January next year And important international nature conservation processes such as the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to be held in China next May. Mr. Rishi Keshab Bikram Shah, Secretary of the Asian Membership Committee, briefly introduced the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Asian Membership Committee, which was reviewed and approved by all participants.

Dr. Enrique J. Lahmann, Global Director of the IUCN Union Development Project, introduced the current WCC preparations. Due to the impact of the epidemic, WCC will be postponed from June 11-19, 2020 to January 7-15, 2021 in Marseille, France. The agenda of the meeting remains unchanged. At the same time, the wonderful exhibitions during the meeting will be open to all members and ordinary people. In addition, he also introduced how IUCN members can effectively participate in the agenda of the conference, such as actively participating in online discussion and voting of proposals and participating in various election matters.

At the meeting, Mr. Malik Amin Aslam Khan, Adviser to the Prime Minister of Pakistan on Climate Change, as one of the candidates for the chairman of the next IUCN Council, explained his campaign propositions and Pakistan’s successful practices and cases in nature-based solutions to address climate change. Integrated with biodiversity protection. Professor Masahiko Horie and Mr. Mangal Man Shakya, directors of IUCN, gave speeches successively, offering advice and suggestions for the development of IUCN in Asia. Representatives of some national committees briefly shared their work in the past year, especially introducing how to carry out nature protection and education related work under the special situation of the epidemic.

Finally, Chairman MacPing gave a brief sharing on the WCC proposal and the participation of the Asian region. At the same time, it is hoped that members of the Asian region should participate more actively in the various agendas of the World Conservation Conference, give an Asian voice, and actively influence the world nature conservation process; plans to organize various meetings and forums to promote exchanges and cooperation among members in the Asian region ; Strengthen communication with the IUCN Secretariat and Scientific Committee, and enhance IUCN's professional influence and international leadership in the field of nature protection.