Editorial Narrative for Conservation with Rights and Justice
IUCN | Regional Office for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean (ORMACC) | VOCES Project
Country (ies): Global
Scope: Regional
Year: 2025
01
CONTEXT
Led by the Regional Office for Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean (ORMACC), documented key findings on the relationship between threats to biodiversity and the rights of Indigenous Peoples, promoting a conservation approach grounded in justice and based on intercultural dialogue and active participation.
In order for this evidence to be used by Indigenous leaders, scientific teams, donors, and government actors, it needed to be transformed into a clear and culturally appropriate technical narrative.
02
CHALLENGE
Transforming highly complex data and technical documents into communication materials that maintain rigor and source backing, while simultaneously being readable, usable, and capable of driving transformation. These materials needed to connect the evidence with the territory and public policy frameworks without neglecting the rights dimension or the intercultural approach.
03
SOLUTION
An advocacy-ready editorial ecosystem (print and digital) was developed, focusing on value rather than just a checklist of tasks:
- Verifiable technical narrative: Building a narrative that brings evidence, territorial context, and public policy frameworks into dialogue. This narrative is explicitly designed as an input for advocacy, decision-making, and the mobilization of key actors.
- Editorial systematization meeting IUCN standards: Curating and verifying sources, technical structuring, specialized editing/writing, and aligning with institutional editorial standards.
- Biocultural design for global dissemination: Designing a professional PDF for digital and print use, consistent with the VOCES and IUCN identities, featuring custom graphic elements (icons, textures, maps, and analytical charts) that facilitated accessibility and clarity.
- Executive presentation of the 2025 Report: Developing a presentation to communicate the study's progress, highlighting the new justice-based conservation approach and the importance of intercultural dialogue with Indigenous Peoples.
04
IMPACT
In this project, technical evidence and findings from Mesoamerica were successfully converted into influential communication instruments:
- Specialized instrument for international dissemination: The result is a product ready for public circulation that strengthens the project's technical positioning and highlights the critical relationship between biodiversity and Indigenous rights.
- Communicable and actionable justice-based conservation: Translating the rigor of evidence into a communicable, action-ready conservation model that emphasizes intercultural dialogue, participation, and legitimacy.
- Bridge to advocacy in global forums: The study process itself links these results with their use in spaces like COP16, strengthening Indigenous political advocacy in conservation.
- Knowledge sustainability: By delivering materials with editorial quality and replicable design, the team gained assets that can be reused for presentations, socialization, relationship building, and future project updates.
