CEC, the oldest Commission of IUCN

In 1948 IUCN was founded as the International Union for the Protection of Nature (IUPN). A small secretariat supported a Union of States and NGOs. It was the time of post-war reconstruction, decolonization and the beginning awareness of population pressures on natural resources. According to the statutes IUPN had six fields of work, including: “to educate adults and children to realize the danger which lies in the alteration of natural resources and the necessity of action against such a danger”. William Vogt (USA, 1902-1968), one of the founding fathers of IUCN and a well known ornithologist was appointed in 1948 in Fontainebleau to chair the first IUCN Commission, the Permanent Committee on Conservation Education to tackle this field of work. The Commission on Education - as such established in 1949 - initially had eight members. It was generally shortly referred to as Educ.