1,400 Conservationists Just Declared Light Pollution a Global Environmental Threat — and Australia Led the Way
by Kellie Pendoley
In October 2025, 1,400 conservationists from around the world gathered in Abu Dhabi to focus on the most pressing human-driven threats to our planet. They were attending the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress — a major global meeting held every four years to identify urgent environmental problems and set priorities for action.
Among the 135 motions debated, one stood out for its global significance and its Australian origins: Motion 046, “Global strategy for natural darkness restoration: protecting key habitats and mitigating light pollution.”
With its approval, the international conservation community formally recognised artificial light at night as a pollutant — a profound shift for an environmental issue that has only recently begun to receive widespread attention.
Motion 046 urges countries to:
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create national strategies to restore natural darkness
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identify key habitats, migration routes and sensitive areas for nocturnal species
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establish light-pollution exclusion zones
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adopt evidence-based lighting standards and embed them into environmental regulation and assessment
This marks a turning point in the global approach to managing light pollution, an issue that has grown rapidly alongside urbanisation and technological change.
How Australia sparked this global shift
Australia’s role in this story began more than a decade ago.
In 2014, a group of marine turtle biologists met in Brisbane to draft the Recovery Plan for Marine Turtles in Australia (2017–2027). As they reviewed threats to turtle populations, artificial coastal lighting emerged as a major concern. It disorients hatchlings, discourages nesting adults, and contributes to long-term population declines.
Recognising the gap in national guidance, the Commonwealth Department of the Environment (Migratory Species) and Western Australia’s Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions commissioned the National Light Pollution Guidelines for Wildlife in 2018.
Released in January 2020, the guidelines were quickly incorporated into the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act assessment framework. Regulators across Australia began using them to evaluate developments affecting wildlife sensitive to light — from sea turtles and seabirds to bats and invertebrates.
The guidelines’ influence soon spread well beyond Australia. At the 2020 Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species (CMS), all 130 member nations endorsed and adopted them. CMS has since expanded and updated the guidelines to cover additional species and provide broader international relevance.
Why this matters now
Artificial light at night has become one of the fastest-growing pollutants on Earth. It disrupts navigation, feeding, breeding and migration for countless species. It affects human health and obscures our natural view of the night sky. Unlike many pollutants, its effects can be immediate and far-reaching.
The adoption of Motion 046 signals that the global conservation community is now treating light pollution as a critical environmental challenge — one that requires coordinated international action.
Australia’s leadership has helped shape global standards and contributed to a historic recognition: protecting darkness is essential to protecting biodiversity.
#lightpollution #IUCN #ConservationLeadership
