The State of Emergency includes a strengthened policy on reducing movements of people, by implementing strategies such as the closing of shopping malls, schools, parks, prohibiting gatherings, and implementation of strict social distancing.

With this development, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Asia has decided to close the Asia Regional Office in Bangkok, effective 30 March 2020 until further notice.

The safety and health of our staff are regarded as the main priorities in IUCN Asia. We have implemented protocols and procedures based on the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations and instructions by the government.

We have closed offices where necessary and encouraged team members across all of our sites to work from home. IUCN is in the best position to do remote work, apart from tasks requiring field activities. We have the global IUCN office network, a state-of-the art remote working system, which allows support for and collaboration with team members and partners in lieu of hosting physical meetings and events. We are using this global system to meet, discuss and carry forward our commitments in the best possible way we can.

We assure our donors, partners, and our stakeholders that we will do our best to deliver our project commitments even in this very unfortunate time. We will provide you an update on our projects and activities through our project managers.

We will continue to closely monitor developments about the COVID-19 pandemic and update our planned actions as deemed necessary, considering the advice of public health authorities and the WHO.

Thank you.