Our planet is most certainly at crossroads.
The paths we take, we define humanity's opportunities for generations to come.
Throughout all of our history, humankind has taken from the natural world
and it has fostered and fueled our prosperity, but it has come at a cost.
There is hope, but I don't think we have a huge window of time.
The United States is proud to host the IUCN Congress for the first time.
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Successful conservation in the 21st century means moving from random acts of kindness
to strategic conservation.
The planet is indeed at a crossroads,
but Hawaii, along with all of you and the rest of the world,
has the power to choose the direction we take.
This is more than mapping or assessing or developing transparency.
This is making plans of action and we need it urgently.
And I believe that IUCN has a unique voice to get that underway.
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Our efforts are nowhere close to the scale or speed
that is required to safeguard global commons,
which is the foundation of the sustainable development.
There has never been a more urgent or important time
for us all to understand the world and our place in it.
Because when we understand, we can act.
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We have a scientific challenge.
We need science, but our problem is not technical or technological.
Our challenge is ethical.
Somewhere along the lines, we lost touch with the fact that we are part of nature.
We are nature. We're not separate from it or above it.
There's no way that you can talk about food production
and you don't talk about biodiversity.
You can't talk about water security and you don't talk about biodiversity.
You can't talk about health, for an example, and you don't talk about biodiversity.
If we continued at this rate, we would be less,
about a half of all the species of plants and animals in the world
by the end of the century.
Obviously, we have to step up the effort.
But we also know, and this is a good news,
we also know that conservation works.
You actually can turn this around if you invest in conservation.
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Nature-based solutions are cost-effective solutions.
There is an enormous potential.
Some of these solutions have not been really at the center of the discussion so far.
I see increasing agreement on the part of our conservation community,
private sector, governments around the world,
coming together to recognize that we're all in this together.
It's no longer an us-or-them situation.
Business is clearly engaged more than ever before.
We should make it the norm for business to do the right thing.
We should make it the rule.
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We are in this together, and only together we can resolve it.
But if we stand together, there is no limit to what the humans can achieve.
Witnessing the commitment of all of you who have come
to take part in the World Conservation Congress,
I can truly see that we are paddling in the same direction.
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Imagine that those in the future could look back at this as a turning point,
that this was the moment, this was truly the crossroads
when we choose to go in the direction of a better world.
Don't lose time.
15 years of the SDGs is a blink of the eye.
It will be gone before we know it,
and if we're not careful, so too will be nature.
We are at a moment where later is officially over.
You can remove it from the dictionary,
because later will now be too late.
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