By Carlos Alberto Arnillas, Gisela Stotz, Andrea Monica Ortiz, Javiera Beatriz Chinga Chamorro, Mariana Chiuffo, Sharon Collinge, Rebecca Kariuki, Hazel Normal, Helen Regan, Kristiina Visakorpi, Kadambari Devarajan, Alexandra Klein, Florian Schnabel, Anni Arponen, Marc Cadotte, Roger Cousens, Ken Ehrlich, Marilyn Grell-Brisk, Lesley Hughes, Heather Kharouba, Tara Martin, Ana Carolina Prado-Valladares, Libby Rumpff, Bruno Soares, Michael Williams, Marten Winter, Florencia Yannelli, Menilek Beyene, Sula Fernando, Thomas Hart, Minna Santaoja, and Nicolás Santos Domínguez.

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“Business” as usual no longer suffices in this era of global climate crises and biodiversity loss. Implementing impactful and relevant actions is an imperative shared by scientists, educators, and environmentalists working toward our collective responsibility of caring for Nature. As a group of diverse environmental researchers, it is our conviction that Ecologists and Environmental Scientists, along with the professional organizations to which we belong, can and should play a fundamental role in bringing transformative change to the world. However, guidelines for the advancement of responsible and accountable actions for the variety of roles assumed by environmental professionals are missing. To our knowledge no association of Ecologists and Environmental Scientists offers comprehensive guiding principles to their members in their different roles. We call for professional and academic societies representing these professionals to foster that conversation.

As a way to foster such conversation, we developed The Conguillío Statement, which provides a shared goal, values, and responsibilities in the roles of researchers, practitioners, educators, policy- and decision-makers, communicators, advocates and activists. The Statement is built upon core values such as inclusivity, integrity, empathy, competence, and responsibility. These values are used to provide a comprehensive set of responsibilities relevant for different roles. Recognizing the possible conflicts that arise between the variety of roles involved and the different contexts in which Ecologists and Environmental Scientists work, the Conguillío Statement recognizes complexities both within and outside the academy. We show some examples of how the values and responsibilities in the Statement can inform the practices of Ecologists and Environmental Scientists.

We believe that statements of goals, values, and responsibilities for Ecologists and Environmental Scientists, locally discussed and contextualized, can be a starting point to promote discussion about intellectual, academic, and social guidance for effecting change in attitudes, research, teaching, and social engagement that can promote a sustainable future. Locally identifying and agreeing on the collective responsibilities is a needed step to align actions across different roles of Ecologists and Environmental Scientists, which is necessary to move toward a more sustainable future.