IUCN Members Pass Resolution Opposing Saguaro Mexico Pacific LNG and Other LNG in the Gulf of California

ABU DHABI — IUCN World Conservation Congress members adopted Motion 31, led by NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council), to safeguard Mexico’s Gulf of California from LNG industrialization, including the proposed Saguaro Mexico Pacific terminal and the increase in tanker traffic through sensitive whale habitat. The vote asserts that large fossil fuel buildouts are incompatible with the protection of one of the world’s most biodiverse marine regions and sets expectations for governments, lenders, and developers.

Joel Reynolds, senior attorney at NRDC, said,“With today’s vote, the world condemns the Saguaro Mexico Pacific LNG project as the wrong project in the wrong place. Financiers, including J.P. Morgan, should step back from a proposal that threatens a World Heritage site and exposes investors to legal, market, and reputational risk. Industrialization for the production and transport of LNG has no place in the iconic ecosystem of the Gulf of California.”

Gustavo Alanís-Ortega, executive director of the Centro Mexicano de Derecho Ambiental (Mexican Environmental Law Center), said, "We celebrate the support of the IUCN community in protecting the Gulf of California, a vital region for the preservation of marine biodiversity. We cannot continue to endorse the expansion of fossil fuel projects when even international courts have recognized the climate emergency and affirmed the duty of due diligence to prevent environmental and climate harm. We respectfully, yet firmly, call on all actors involved in the implementation of this resolution to ensure its effective and timely realization.”

The Gulf of California, known as the "aquarium of the world," hosts blue and fin whales, whale sharks, sea turtles, and nearly 40 percent of the world’s marine mammal species. An LNG terminal at Puerto Libertad, supplied by long‑distance pipelines and serviced by large tankers, would heighten risks from ship strikes, underwater noise, ballast‑water discharge, light pollution, dredging, and potential spills. It would also place new pressure on fisheries and coastal communities that depend on a healthy gulf.

Motion 31 matters beyond this Congress. IUCN motions reflect the collective voice of governments, scientists, Indigenous Peoples, and civil society. They shape policy debates, influence financing decisions, and will inform work under the Global Biodiversity Framework and upcoming climate and biodiversity meetings, including UNFCCC COP30 this November. This vote adds weight to growing concerns among investors about stranded‑asset, legal, and reputational risks tied to Saguaro’s location, pipelines, and shipping routes near a UNESCO World Heritage site.

NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Established in 1970, NRDC uses science, policy, law and people power to confront the climate crisis, protect public health and safeguard nature. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Beijing and Delhi (an office of NRDC India Pvt. Ltd).

Since 1993, CEMDA (Mexican Environmental Law Center) has been a non-partisan civil organization that promotes the right to a healthy environment and environmental protection, whose work -together with that of many other actors- contributes to the effective compliance and enforcement of legislation, the improvement of public policies, the strengthening of legality and the rule of law. All this with the purpose of achieving better conditions of social welfare in harmony with nature. CEMDA's mission is to promote the right to a healthy environment, as well as its defense through the development and effective enforcement of legislation and public policies.