Political ecology of private tourism development in public protected areas in the lead-up to the IUCN World Conservation Congress 2025

Big Tourism has co-opted the IUCN tourism subgroup to promote land grabs for private tourism development in public protected areas, detracting from IUCN’s conservation role. Recent political manoeuvres include a tourism-in-parks policy paper, proposed motions, and sessions at the World Conservation Congress 2025. We call upon IUCN to explicitly reject infiltration of industrial tourism into national parks, and recognise definitively that public protected areas are assets for conservation of biodiversity.