On June 16, Vice-president of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, founder and head of IDEA Public Association Leyla Aliyeva held bilateral meetings with director general of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Bruno Oberle and director general of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Marco Lambertini in the city of Gland, Switzerland.

During the meeting with the director general of IUCN, discussions were held on the current condition related to preserving the unique samples of biodiversity in the South Caucasian region, underscoring the importance of advancing partnership ties between the organizations and implementing new joint projects.

Leyla Aliyeva expressed gratitude for IDEA Public Association’s being a member of IUCN, the first and the biggest international organization to operate in the field of protection of the environment in the world, and invited the head of the entity to visit Azerbaijan and become closely acquainted with the rich nature and biodiversity of the country.

Then, a meeting took place with the director general of WWF, which has implemented thousands of projects in over 100 countries worldwide to protect nature, and the cooperation existing between this organization and IDEA Public Association was discussed.

Expressing gratitude for the joint endeavours aiming at the protection and rehabilitation of rare and endangered species in Azerbaijan during the meeting, the parties expressed their confidence that this cooperation would become closer in future. In this regard, the parties noted that joint projects aiming at protecting endangered gazelles and leopards, as well as reintroduction of aurochs into Azerbaijan were implemented successfully, reaching agreement on embarking on initiatives related to increasing the number of other rare animal species and returning them to natural habitats.