SARA represents in France for the World Ranger Congress
- sarangerassociation
- Apr 8
- 4 min read
Ranger Niamh Douglas and Senior Ranger Tammy Leggett from National Parks & Wildlife Service SA (NPWSSA) and the South Australian Ranger Association (SARA) joined 450 Rangers from 88 Countries around the world in October 2024 for the 10th World Ranger Congress in Hyères, France on the Giens Peninsula (along with wild flamingos!).
The Congress, hosted by French ranger association the Gardes Nature de France, is an International Ranger Federation (IRF) event to bring rangers together to network, learn, meet, share, and listen to stories. The event is generally held every 3 years, however the last congress was in Chitwan, Nepal in 2019, just before COVID shut the world down.
Tammy and Niamh were elated to have met so many likeminded rangers and supporters of rangers, “It was an amazing opportunity to meet so many different rangers, and whilst our stories are a little different, it makes you feel connected with a whole new community across the world all with the same goals of protecting our environment for future generations” said Tammy.
The congress theme was linked to the 2022 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) target ‘to conserve at least 30% of the Earth's land, waters, and sea area by 2030’. Since the congress, rangers have been invited to present at several global conferences highlighting our role in contributing to most of the 23 biodiversity targets on the GBF list, this is a first for rangers voices to be heard on a worldwide stage in this way. Rangers are being advocated as Planetary Health Workers and being given greater recognition of our work caring for and protecting the environment.
One of the biggest targets the IRF is working towards is to increase the number of people working in the ranger profession from 300,000 to 1.5 million global rangers by the 2030 target. This number has been calculated as part of the implementation of the Biodiversity Framework and we have a bit of a way to go!
Delegates attended all the keynote presentations and many of the workshops. Niamh was very excited when past DEW CE John Scanlon’s presentation mentioned a South Australian project, “I was a little surprised when John’s presentation about the Global Biodiversity Framework, talked about not only the important work of the Bounceback program, but referenced the great work that South Australia is doing to manage biodiversity and threatening process, something that we all know, but it’s great to be reminded of, and what better place than on a world stage!”
Other top highlights from the congress included:
· presentations from the Network of Indigenous Women Rangers, based in Queensland, this group have brought together female indigenous rangers for training, mentoring, networking and leadership, with very positive achievements.
· the State of the Ranger Report, which provided information from a global ranger survey and provided valuable information about the current state of ranger conditions.
· Rangers at the Heart of the 30x30 target and the support from the IUCN in supporting rangers to achieve the Global Biodiversity Framework targets.
John Jurko 11 presented the documentary film he produced, ‘Rhino Man’, telling the challenges of protecting one of the worlds iconic species. ‘This is an amazing film that I recommend everyone watches, it was made even better watching it with rangers from across the world! But don’t forget to take a few tissues!” said Tammy.
Niamh met Holly Budge, of not for profit organisation ‘How many Elephants’, which supports the work of female rangers including the Black Mamba’s and Akashinga all female ranger teams in Africa. Holly is also the founder of World Female Ranger Week and Niamh was able to organise a visit from Holly to meet the new DEW Network of Operational Women, “It was so great to meet Holly, connect with her and what she is about. She is such a positive role model and I’m looking forward to working with her as an Aussie Ambassador for World Female Ranger Week” Niamh said.
Niamh and Tammy are very appreciative of the opportunity to attend the congress, they made fantastic connections, learnt, shared stories and are looking forward to presenting more takings to the SARA members at the Annual Migration in August 2025.
Whilst there were many take home message from the congress; Tammy’s reflection is “Everyone who works in this field are passionate and dedicated people, we need to take those opportunities to connect, work together and look out for each other, to promote and talk about the work which we as rangers do. We are the best voices for the environment and our environment really needs that right now” Tammy said.
The IRF President reported on the previous congresses Chitwan Declaration achievements and all attending congress members voted on the Hyères Declaration, which SARA are looking forward to supporting over the next 3 years. If people are interested in finding out more about the works of the IRF please see https://www.internationalrangers.org/.
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