Defending WWF and Sir Peter Scott's animal protection initiatives

[Guest guest]

Hello,

 

1) The Nene Goose project was started by WWT - Wildfowl and

Wetlands Trust. WWT was opened by Sir Peter Scott before WWF. I am not aware

how much involvement WWF had in the Nene Goose programme(apart from

philosophical endorsement) and I would like see the exact reference of the

assessment that states that the Boy Scouts were more effective in saving

this bird than WWT or WWF. Here, I must mention that the state of the Nene

Goose is not unique among reintroduced animals, there are many others

similarly teetering even after strenuous release projects. What is so

uniquely flawed about the role of WWT/WWF in this? On the other hand, the

unique positive about the captive breeding project of the Nene Goose was

that it was one of the first concerted efforts at conservation in captivity

led by none other than Sir Peter Scott. David Hancocks acknowledges this in

his book on zoos, 'A Different Nature', rightly so. I could write to David

to obtain more information on this.

 

2) The situation in Galapagos is similar to that of hundreds of situations

in the world. What is so unique about WWF's failure here again? Would the

Galapagos have been better off without the Charles Darwin Research station

or the many projects that WWF has initiated there? As Sir Peter Scott said,

" We shan't save all we should like to, but we shall save a great deal more

than if we had never tried. " I am not at all convinced that WWF is not

serious about saving the Galapagos just as I am not convinced they are not

serious about saving wild nature elsewhere. They are committed people with a

mission, and I might only think otherwise if I saw more evidence. Right now

the evidence is watery and biased. WWF's Deed of Foundation states that it

was created to ensure the " conservation of world fauna, flora, forests,

landscape, water, soils and other natural resources by the acquisition and

management of land, research and investigation, education at all levels,

information and publicity, coordination of efforts, cooperation with other

interested parties and all other appropriate means. " In order to achieve its

objectives, it also worked to raise funds for IUCN-World Conservation

Union. What is so despicable about this? And is Sea Shepherd any less

controversial than WWF? And is Paul Watson any less controversial than Sir

Peter Scott?

 

3) The notion of " sustainable use " is not unique to WWF. The World

Association of Zoos and Aquaria also endorses the WWF stance.WWF does

mention it overtly and it is not a pleasant one when it endorses hunting and

culling animals for commercial use. They themselves are aware it is not.

Animal welfare organisations say it covertly which is why at AfA conferences

the whole hall resounds with applause when people promote and endorse humane

slaughter and pass resolutions in favour of absurd fatwas which are always

open to interpretation. Humane slaughter is sustainable use, only cleverly

disguised. As I said Compassion In World Farming has a hunting connection in

the form of David Shepherd. RSPCA in the form of Her Majesty The Queen.

There are others too, including the involvement of Prince Philip and Prince

Charles. Even Peter Singer is promoting consumption of 'compassionately

raised' animal products.

It is correct to say that the intial board members of WWF were hunters and

captive bird shooters but that description is not exactly accurate for Sir

Peter Scott for he himself had given up hunting when he started WWF. If his

hunting record has to be taken into account, he should be described as a

'former hunter' or a 'former trophy hunter' rather than a hunter. There is a

difference between a former hunter and a hunter. Even Ashoka, widely

acclaimed as a conservationist and a humanitarian was a killer and a

butcher till the Kalinga war. Is it correct to describe Ashoka as a killer

when talking about conservation disregarding all his other achievements?

 

 

In a previous email, I mentioned a number of humanitarians who have killed

animals and abused humans, the most notable being Brigitte Bardot. How many

organisations working for animals are upfront to face these facts when

compared to WWF? I would like to see material that condemns Brigitte

Bardot's extreme right wing stance in politics and inter racial relations

when compared to animal rights. If anyone has it, kindly forward it to me.

 

I respect WWF because my initiation into the animal and environmental

movement in school was through their Nature Club scheme, which I maintain is

fabulous. I also respect them for the enormous amount of good they have done

to protect India's wilderness and the number of conservationists they have

trained who have gone on to distinguished careers in their own right. They

include the Executive Director of WTI, Vivek Menon and many others. Why are

we so chary about giving credit where it is due?

 

Is it not true that the whole animal protection movement in itself is

debatable considering the 'humans versus animals' argument which I think is

relevant and valid? Does that mean we should discredit all animal workers or

vice versa because no consensus has been reached?

 

I strongly contend the assertion that WWF should not be supported because I

recognise how hard the organisation works to save animals in difficult

situations. I feel that the criticisms of Sir Peter Scott, although

certainly valid and true in certain situations(principally in a historical

context), do not take into account his humanitarian achievements(Towards the

end of his life he said he wished he could have done more to help humanity

directly, a very noble admission that few animal workers would ever make).

One should also keep in mind that WWF was formed in the sixties when the

politics of the global scenario was quite different from what it is today.

If you look into the history of animal protection, it is quite contradictory

when the colonialists were advocating humane treatment for animals in

colonies and killing people en masse in the same place. I do not think that

makes the animal welfare movement any less potent, or does it?

 

I am attaching a historical timeframe of the achievemnts of WWF so that

people can appreciate how much they have achieved irrespective of their

stance on sustainable use. And I do not know of a single WWF project in

India that is embracing hunting. If they do, I will raise my voice against

it.

 

And I also reiterate that Sir Peter Markham Scott was one of the greatest

human beings of the 20th century. His picture hangs in my bedroom, he is my

inspiration as a conservationist and a humanitarian and I respect him

despite all his warts and flaws. He was also a brilliant author and an

incredibly talented painter. The world is better off because he lived and I

wish there were many more like him. I really regret I could not meet him and

interview him. Maybe I will have the honour of interviewing one of his

descendants.

 

 

Best wishes,

 

 

 

 

 

A History of WWF: The Sixties

 

 

*One of the most important figures in WWF's early history was the renowned

British biologist, Sir Julian Huxley. The first Director General of UNESCO,

Huxley had also helped found a scientific research-based conservation

institution, now known as IUCN-The World Conservation Union.*

 

In 1960, Huxley went to East Africa to advise UNESCO on wildlife

conservation in the area. He was appalled at what he saw. On his return to

London, he wrote three articles for The Observer newspaper in which he

warned the British public that habitat was being destroyed and animals

hunted at such a rate that much of the region's wildlife could disappear

within the next 20 years.

 

The articles hit home, alerting readers to the fact that nature conservation

was a serious issue. Huxley received a number of letters from concerned

members of the public. Among these was a letter from businessman Victor

Stolan, who pointed out the urgent need for an international organization to

raise funds for conservation.

WWF Conservation 1961 to 2006

WWF's approach to conservation from its inception to 2006. by Chris Hails,

Conservation Director, WWF International 1994-2006

The development of approaches to nature conservation is explored broadly

but with particular reference to the WWF.

 

Starting from a crisis-driven, opportunistic approach, most organisations

developed global strategies to increase the impact of their work and to

improve the effectiveness of the resources at their disposal.

 

For WWF it has meant prioritising large geographical areas known as ecoregions

and developing targeted outcomes at a global level.

 

 

 

This is very much a personal and institutional perspective on approaches

to conserving the world’s natural heritage. It reviews the changing

perceptions of conservation of the natural world and how WWF has reacted to

these. It is not intended to be a comprehensive history of the conservation

movement.

 

Sir Julian Huxley (left) & Max Nicholson in Coto Doñana, Spain, in 1970.

© WWF-Canon / Eric HOSKING

 

Front page of the Daily Mirror, 9th October 1961. " Shock Issue " brought out

after the announcement of the establishment of the World Wildlife Fund (on

26.09.1961). No less then 7 pages were devoted to the wildlife emergency,

including the front and back pages and the middle spread. The front page

article was alerting the international community to the need to protect the

world's Rhinos.

© Daily Mirror

The World Wildlife Fund was founded in 1961 - the 11 September 1961 to be

precise - by a small group of ardent, mostly British naturalists and

conservationists such as Peter Scott, Max Nicholson, Guy Mountfort and

Julian Huxley.

 

The latter, Huxley, had published a series of articles in the UK's

Observer newspaper

on his observations of an environmental crisis in Africa. He received a

reaction from the businessman Victor Stolan in December 1960 who proposed

the establishment of an international organisation to raise funds for the

conservation of wild species. Huxley, Nicholson and companions reacted to

this by forming WWF, known then as the *World Wildlife Fund*, a little under

a year later.

 

All of those founders had connections with other conservation organisations

such as the *International Union for the Conservation of Nature* (IUCN), the

*Fauna Preservation Society*, *UNESCO*, the *British Nature Conservancy*,

etc., and so WWF had a springboard from their knowledge and connections.1

 

Environmentalism becomes a public issue

Until that time conservation had been largely the domain of scientists and

hunters, but WWF moved the agenda out into the public arena for the first

time, using publicity and public appeals skilfully.2

 

In a post-empire world this primarily emotional appeal to ‘help save

wildlife’ struck a chord with the public and WWF was able to raise

significant funds and donated $1.9 million to projects in Africa, Europe,

India and other places in its first 3 years - a considerable sum in the

early 1960s.

 

Why WWF grew big, quickly

What is remarkable is the speed with which WWF was able to become

established and grow. This was partly due to the well-connected and

influential individuals who were associated with the founders. But it may

also have been that the ‘time was right’ for such an organisation.

Television was beginning to bring world affairs into people’s homes; the

post-war industrial boom had raised sensitivities to matters of pollution

and waste disposal; and several years of controversy culminated in Rachel

Carson’s famous book *Silent Spring* which cautioned on the effects of

pesticide abuse.3*

 

*The 1960s were also a time of pressure on the ‘establishment’, of

non-acceptance of the status quo or traditional solutions to problems. Thus

a new approach to a now visible wildlife crisis had its attractions to a

wide audience. This was also a time when the deeper relationships between

humans and nature began to be examined.

 

The dependence of our ancestors on wildlife stocks to hunt and fish had

always been recognised; those days were long gone, but a popular late 1950s

feeling that the resources of the sea were limitless was being replaced by

mounting suspicion that things were not that simple. Evidence of loss of

topsoil, water shortages and pest outbreaks created by industrial-scale

farming was giving rise to broader questioning of human relationships with

the environment, and it was during this period that James Lovelock’s *Gaia

Hypothesis* was formulated.4

 

Thus WWF was founded for specific purposes during a period of wide-ranging

thought.

 

Officially life began in Switzerland

It was established as a Swiss Foundation registered in Zurich, and the deed

of foundation specified amongst the purposes of the organisation " …the

conservation of world fauna, flora, forests, landscape, water, soils and

other natural resources… "

 

This far-reaching vision for WWF is perhaps even more relevant today than it

may have been in 1961, because people’s attention was drawn by an emotional

argument based upon the preservation of charismatic species.

 

Reflecting this, WWF's British based appeal was launched with pictures of

black rhinos in Africa under the headline " Doomed! " .

 

Meanwhile Peter Scott had taken George Waterson’s sketches of the giant

panda Chi-Chi, then residing in London Zoo, and turned it into the logo of

the organisation.Chi-chi was the only giant panda residing in the West, had

arrived from the mysteries of communist China, and was an evocative species

symbol for the challenges facing those concerned with the preservation of

wild nature.

 

So despite some deeper thinking which underpinned it, the early days of WWF

were ones which were dominated by a preservationist agenda for species and

habitats, based on popular appeal.

 

 

The Next Generation

Conservation had suddenly become much more complicated but much more

relevant to the modern world.

This approach ran successfully through the 1970s while, along with the

spread of television (soon to be in colour) and the growth of wildlife

documentary films, public awareness of conservation and natural heritage

issues grew exponentially.

 

But with that awareness came the realisation that a rather crisis-driven,

spotty approach to conservation was not achieving the long-term solutions

that were sought, and that economic development continued to impact heavily

upon nature.

 

Environment meets human development

In 1980, WWF came together with IUCN and the newly formed UNEP to produce

the modestly named *World Conservation Strategy*; at the time this was a

landmark document because it linked human activity, human well-being and its

dependence upon nature all as one. It stressed the interrelationships

between conservation and development and first gave currency to the

term *sustainable

development*.5

 

Conservation had suddenly become much more complicated but much more

relevant to the modern world.

 

Changing focus, changing name

The 1980s were marked by a closer examination of development issues and

their relationships to the environment. In 1985 WWF formally re-registered

its name as World Wide Fund for Nature, to try and escape the preservation

of animal species image and reflect a broader view of the situation.

 

And in 1987 the *World Commission on Environment and Development* (WCED)

produced *Our Common

Future<http://www.ringofpeace.org/environment/brundtland.html>

* and this properly defined *sustainable development*.*6*

 

Most significantly the UN began the planning for a World Conference on

Environment and

Development<http://www.panda.org/what_we_do/how_we_work/conservation/wwf_conserv\

ation_1961_2006/1260>(the

*Rio Summit*) for 1992. In advance of Rio, and now a decade further on,

IUCN/UNEP andWWF once again came together to produce *Caring for the Earth:

A Strategy for Sustainable Living*7 which explored from a strategic

perspective how the concept of sustainable development could be implemented

in practice.

 

All this activity served to move environment and conservation on to a higher

plane. It was no longer the specialised interest of scientists, hunters and

animal lovers; there was a realisation that a sound environment was the

starting point for all human development and welfare and that our activities

were inextricably woven into the milieu in which we live.

 

 

WWF Living Planet Report

As espoused in *Caring for the Earth*, WWF began to take a much more

strategic approach to its conservation activities, and also wanted to

explore the linkages between nature and human activity by looking at the

state of nature and how it was changing. Businesses and economies had their

own barometers of change in the form of the *Dow Jones*, *CAC40* and

*FTSE*indices. These could be used to see how the world of commerce

was changing;

would it be possible to do the same for nature?

 

*A report on the state of the planet*

In 1998 the first WWF *Living Planet

Report*<http://www.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/living_planet_repo\

rt/>(LPR)

was published,

8 containing estimates of the changing state of nature based on changing

populations of vertebrate animals; it also contained an estimate of human

pressure on the planet.

 

8 years later the LPR is now a bi-annual publication; the LPR

2006<http://www.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/living_planet_report/\

linving_planet_report_timeline/lp_2006/>has

grown to contain the

*Living Planet

Index*<http://www.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/living_planet_repor\

t/living_planet_index/>,

a composite of data from 3,600 species populations, and also the *ecological

footprint*<http://www.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/living_planet_r\

eport/footprint/>-

an index of the area of the planet needed to sustain human activity.

 

These 2 indices show that, roughly over the past 30 years, the natural world

has lost approximately 30% of its health as indicated by declining

populations of wild species, whilst at the same time human activity has

caused our ecological foot-print to more than double during the same period.

 

The causal relationship between the two is not difficult to deduce.

*

We need more than we have*

In reviewing the ecological footprint we can learn even more, because it

shows that some time in the mid-1980s human activity passed the point that

the planet can sustain and that we now exceed it by about 25%. In other

words the human population requires 1.25 planets to sustain present levels

of consumption.

 

At the moment the human population of the planet can live on more than is

available, because we continue to ‘mine’ the accumulated capital of such

things as stocks of timber from forests, or fish from the sea, and we also

take the products of past millennia from the ground in the form of fossil

fuels. This can be likened to spending more money than one earns each month

by draining savings from the bank account.

 

However, this cannot continue and humankind continues to degrade the planet.

 

 

 

The ChallengeGiven a new understanding of the relationships between economic

development and its impact and its dependency upon the environment, what

should be the best approach for a private conservation organisation such as

WWF?

 

Although of significant size (WWF will spend nearly $500m on conservation in

2005-2006), the total amount of activity even with this large sum is

seemingly trivial when compared with the total economic activity of the

world... global GDP in 2005 was of the order of $60 trillion.

 

Thus the challenge: how to influence the rate of degradation of our natural

heritage and to influence development paths on to a more sustainable

trajectory?

 

The work to be done falls into 3 main areas:

 

1. Direct biodiversity conservation: like the good mechanic dismantling

an engine,this involves ‘keeping all the pieces’ - ensuring that species are

not lost or ecosystems irretrievably damaged by the threats.

2. Reversing the threats: this involves tackling the immediate cause of

environmental decline - those threats which are direct such as over-fishing,

deforestation, or illegal wildlife trade, and those which may be more

indirect such as climate changeor toxic pollution.

3. Creating favourable or ‘enabling’ conditions: many of the threats to

natural heritage security exist because of fundamental failures in the

policy frameworks and decision-making processes that influence economic

trends and development paths. Influencing those so that they encourage

environmentally sound behaviour is essential to cure the underlying disease

causing environmental decay.

 

 

 

 

Rising to the ChallengeDuring this period of more sophisticated

understanding of environmental challenges, over the past 20 years there has

also been significant growth in *non-governmental organisations* (NGOs)

addressing conservation issues, especially at an international scale.

 

In some instances this was reflected in the growth of existing institutions;

WWF grew from about 25 major offices in the mid-1980s to nearly 60 by the

end of the 1990s and with activities in more than 100 countries.

 

Long-established NGOs such as the US-based *The Nature

Conservancy*<http://www.nature.org/>(TNC) began to migrate from

traditional land-owning US-based conservation to

increasing engagement in developing countries; a move also reflected by the

*Wildlife Conservation Society* <http://www.wcs.org/> (WCS) a conservation

research and extension activity of the Bronx Zoo. In other instances whole

new organisations developed such as *Conservation International*

<http://www.conservation.org/>which started in the late 1980s with an

international mandate from its inception.

 

How to produce bigger, better results

In all of these organisations there was a growing frustration that we were

winning many small battles but still losing the war; on what scale we were

losing was only properly realised when WWF produced its first *Living Planet

Index* in 1998. But each in their own way was struggling to produce bigger

and better results with the resources at their disposal.

 

Some institutions focused on particular themes- thus the *World Resources

Institute* <http://www.wri.org/> (WRI) *Forest Frontiers* programme began;

others focused upon the danger of extinction of species - *Conservation

International* expanded upon the Norman Myers

*hotspots*<http://www.biodiversityhotspots.org/>approach.

 

In WWF and TNC this meant working on a larger geographic scale and the

concept of *Ecoregion

Conservation*<http://www.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/ecoregions/about/>wa\

s

developed.

 

For WWF this was based upon an analysis of the global distribution of

biodiversity resulting in a map now known as the *Global

200*<http://www.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/ecoregions/ecoregion_list/>.

 

 

 

The Global 200

<http://assets.panda.org/img/original/ecoregions_map.jpg> The world's " 200 "

most important ecoregions.

© WWF

The Global 200 began with WWF asking the question: " if we wish to conserve

biodiversity, where should we be investing our precious conservation funds? "

 

 

It was an exercise in prioritisation, recognising that if the available

resources were spread too thinly they could not achieve the desired result;

then how should they be focused?

 

WWF scientists gathered published data on the way in which species were

distributed across the planet. Those distributions coalesced into patterns

they called *ecoregions* - an ecoregion is defined as a large area of land

or water that contains a geographically distinct assemblage of natural

communities that

 

- share a large majority of their species and ecological dynamics,

- share similar environmental conditions, and

- interact ecologically in ways that are critical for their long-term

persistence.9

 

These ecoregions had reasonably well-defined boundaries and could be plotted

on a map <http://www.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/ecoregions/maps/>.

To turn this into data which could help determine conservation priorities,

WWF selected the approximately 200 ecoregions (in the end it turned out to

be 238) which best represented the distribution of biodiversity on a global

scale, and so resulted the *Global 200*.

 

This analysis recognised for the first time that it was not only coral reefs

and rain forests that were important, but that deserts, Mediterranean

regions, and the tundra contained unique species which, if lost, could never

be replaced.10* *

 

This mapping approach clearly indicated where the work should begin. But it

created a new problem: each ecoregion demanded working at a scale which

conservationists had never tried to work at before, but which in fact was

probably in better relation to the threats they were facing. So a new

challenge now resulted: how to work at an *ecoregional* scale.

 

 

 

Ecoregion Conservation

The Arctic: an ecoregion

© WWF-Canon / Wim VAN PASSEL

 

The Amazon: an ecoregion

© WWF-Canon / André BÄRTSCHI

 

Fynbos, South Africa: an ecoregion

© WWF-Canon / Martin HARVEY

 

Siberian Taiga: an ecoregion

© WWF-Canon / Hartmut JUNGIUS

 

Chihuahuan Desert: an ecoregion

© WWF-Canon / Edward Parker

At the same time that WWF was identifying the Global 200, a sister

organisation - TNC - was also examining how to work at a large geographical

scale. Between the two of us they invented a new approach which we

called *Ecoregion-based

Conservation*.

 

This was quite an exciting period as conservationists had not developed a

new tool for their problems for some years, and here was a new and ambitious

approach in the run-up to the new millennium. Ecoregion conservation

basically involves standing back, as if from space, and asking " what needs

to change to secure the long-term conservation of this ecoregion? "

 

The approach is based upon 4 fundamental principles of biodiversity

conservation:

 

1. representation of all native habitats;

2. maintenance of viable populations of all native species;

3. maintenance of essential ecological processes;

4. maintaining resilience to ecological change.

 

 

By viewing these needs from a distance the observer is forced into thinking

about the fundamental changes that are required to achieve them and the

challenge creates questions that begin to give the clues as to the work

which is required:

 

- What are the current trends of environmental change within the

ecoregion and who is affected by them, both positively and negatively?

- What current processes are taking place within the ecoregion,

especially related to development, and how might they be impinging upon the

environment? This usually entails a host of issues such as landscape change

for agriculture, industrial development, city expansion, port construction,

change in drainage patterns through dams, irrigation channels or other

hydrological change. What can be done to mitigate the impact of these?

- What are the fundamental forces driving those changes which may be

damaging? This may be economic pressures from inside the ecoregion or

outside the ecoregion (e.g. structural adjustment loans, or perverse

subsidies driving change),demographic issues, internal political issues.

- Who are the players concerned with the environment and what are their

capacities to deal with the challenges? This involves looking at both

government and non-government institutions and their strengths and

weaknesses.

- What are the key landscapes and habitats in the ecoregion and do they

have adequate protection currently? If not, what should be added to a

protected areas system?

 

By standing back and answering far-reaching questions like these, ecoregion

conservation forces the questioner to think broadly and creatively, to look

at the wider picture,to examine fundamental drivers rather than immediate

symptoms.

 

It requires that not only the systems for protecting nature (national parks

and protected areas) be adequately addressed, but that policies influencing

them and the land area which connects them are also sound. These policies

may be those of governments inside the ecoregion (e.g. land-use policies,

water-quality policies, transport plans, inter-ministerial relationships,

etc.), or they may be policies stemming from institutions outside the

ecoregion - the impact of World Bank structural adjustment loans, EU

agricultural subsidies and how they influence agriculture in developing

countries, foreign direct investment and how it impacts poverty-alleviation

programmes and trade in various commodities.

 

All these may be of fundamental importance to environmental security within

an ecoregion, but may require work in centres well away from the specific

ecoregion.

 

By asking who is involved, who are the environmental stakeholders, an

ecoregion approach also encourages the formation of partnerships to work

together on a conservation programme.

 

This latter point is critical as normally a single organisation on its own

cannot cover the whole range of activities which are needed; it is usually

essential to reach out to others with different skills, interests and needs.

 

 

Some of the most important conservation breakthroughs of recent years have

resulted from the joint activities of non-traditional partners, both of

which may have had an interest in a sound environment but perhaps for

different reasons.

 

 

Thinking Globally

World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)in Johannesburg.

August/September 2002 WWF protest theatre just outside the Sandton

Conference Centre where the WSSD delegates gathered every day, showing world

leaders asleep on the job of safeguarding the world. Republic of South

Africa

© WWF-Canon / Chris MARAIS

 

<http://assets.panda.org/img/original/fig22_human_dev_and_eco_footprints.gif>

(Enlarge this

image<http://assets.panda.org/img/original/fig22_human_dev_and_eco_footprints.gi\

f>)

The Ecological Footprint and Human Development Index. An Ecological

Footprint of 1.8 global hectares or less is within the per capita

biocapacity of the planet; a Human Development Index of 0.8 or greater is

considered to be ‘high development’ (UNDP). Most countries with high

development have already exceeded the per capita biocapacity and cannot be

considered as sustainable. (Source: WWF Living Planet Report 2006.)

© WWF

 

FSC logo on a felled log.

The Global 200 and Ecoregion Conservation enabled WWF to focus its attention

on some of the most globally significant parts of the planet and to address

environmental change in an holistic manner. However, a purely geographical

approach would have missed some of the important global processes underway

during more than a decade of globalising economies and the weakening of

international boundaries.

 

Impact of globalisation

Starting in the early 1990s an increasing permeability of international

borders resulted from a variety of factors including increasing

liberalisation of trade, high-speed communications in the Internet age, a

burgeoning of (especially multinational) corporate power and a weakening of

government authority, in a bundle of symptoms loosely described as *

globalisation*.

 

Whilst this process of globalisation stimulated trade and commerce, and

brought increasing wealth to millions, not all of this activity was of

benefit to the environment.

 

Increasing commercial activity brought growth in resource consumption, not

only to provide raw materials but also to meet the demands of the

beneficiaries who now had greater buying power. It also brought a widening

gap between those caught up in commercial prosperity and those not so

engaged.

 

The world's response

This widening gap between rich and poor culminated at the 2002 UN World

Summit on Sustainable

Development<http://www.panda.org/what_we_do/how_we_work/conservation/wwf_conserv\

ation_1961_2006/14381>in

Johannesburg in the establishment of the Millennium

Development Goals <http://www.panda.org/what_we_do/policy/mdg/>, which set

an agenda for lifting people out of poverty.

 

Clearly the marketplace had not only done insufficient for the poor and

disenfranchised, but as we can now see from the LPR it has also failed the

environment.

 

The 2006 LPR contains a

graph<http://assets.panda.org/img/original/fig22_human_dev_and_eco_footprints.gi\

f>which

shows the relationship between the ecological foot-print and the

UN Human Development

Index<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human%20Development%20Index>.

This shows that the development trajectory of most countries bypasses the

criteria for sustainability. This then presents yet another challenge for

those concerned with the conservation of the world’s natural heritage: how

do we turn the juggernaut of the world economy into a direction that favours

the environment?

 

Globalisation and world trade is not some-thing that one can be ‘for’ or

‘against’, it is a fact of life, an inevitable force which we need to direct

towards sustainability.

 

WWF recognised this some years ago and has been establishing various

mechanisms which could lead to a marketplace move to sustainable behaviour.

The most successful to date has been relating to the timber trade.

 

 

Forests and trade

Forests worldwide are in decline as a result of the over-harvesting of

timber. The wealth-driven growth of the construction and furniture industry

and the growing demand for pulp and paper have put enormous strains upon

supplies from forests. In the temperate zones of Europe this has been

recognised and some modest increase in forest areas has resulted from the

establishment of large plantation schemes (but only after most of Europe’s

forests had already been destroyed).

 

However, in some temper-ate forests (e.g. the Pacific coasts of Canada and

the USA), and broadly in tropical areas, the battles between various forest

interests have sometimes been fierce.

 

Labeling wood as good

In the early1990s the concept of third-party certification for sustainable

timber production was established under the name of the Forest Stewardship

Council<http://www.panda.org/what_we_do/how_we_work/conservation/forests/our_sol\

utions/partnerships/fsc/>(FSC).

The FSC was established as an accreditation agency which could verify

country-specific certification systems following the FSC standards and

criteria for environmentally and socially sustainable forest management

systems. A piece of timber carrying the FSC logo could carry with it the

assurance of sustainability- a ‘light footprint’ in the language of the LPR.

 

However, for a market mechanism to be effective there has to be demand as

well as supply. Thus, by creating a momentum through public and consumer

education and awareness programmes, WWF created a new demand for wood with

the FSC logo, and groups of timber traders became committed to trading in

sustainably produced timber. These timber companies came to realise that

continuing environmental decline would inevitably lead to stricter

regulations, public demand for action, and difficulties with supplies.

 

Their change in behaviour was not entirely altruistic - although the concept

of* corporate social responsibility* (CSR) has now emerged -but also made

good business sense for them as well.

 

Approaching the end of 2006 there are over 70 million ha of production

forests certified under the FSC scheme with activities in 72 countries. The

growth of FSC is interesting from a natural heritage conservation point of

view: it is a long way removed from the traditional approaches to

conservation, it is deeply rooted in international commerce, yet its success

could have far-reaching consequences for forest integrity and biodiversity

conservation.

 

What is more important, although WWF was a major player in the development

and launching of the idea in the first instance, it has now become a

self-sustaining force related to the timber industry- a new way of doing

business which no longer requires the strong intervention of an NGO.

 

For a conservation organisation this is important.

 

Referring back to earlier comments on the impossibility of tackling all the

environmental needs of the world, it is vital that conservation NGOs find

ways of instigating sound practices that can then become self-sustaining, so

that the organisation can move their limited resources to a new challenge.

 

 

 

The Changing Role of Commerce

<http://assets.panda.org/img/original/wwf_postcard_03.jpg>

Moving forward with these ideas WWF has then applied them to the sea.

 

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) told us many years ago that

75% of the world’s fisheries were either depleted or over-fished. Fishing

effort was continuing to rise whilst catches were stable or declining. Not

only this but species were crashing as populations passed the threshold of

sustainable off-take - cod in the North Atlantic, for example, whilst new

and strange species were appearing in our shops such as hoki and pollack, as

previous commercial species became rarer and more expensive for the average

consumer.

 

Into this arena WWF introduced the *Marine Stewardship

Council<http://www.panda.org/what_we_do/how_we_work/conservation/marine/our_solu\

tions/sustainable_fishing/sustainable_seafood/>

* (MSC) - the fish equivalent of the FSC.

 

Importance of business partnerships

Interestingly, when WWF launched the MSC it did not do so alone, but with

strong support from and close co-operation with a major multinational

company (Unilever) which at that time was one of the world’s largest

manufaturers of fish derived products. In the 1970s and1980s such a company

would have been perceived as the enemy of the conservationists, but was now

a vital part of the solution.

 

This is a good demonstration of the importance of partnerships between

stakeholders who may have quite different reasons for achieving a common

result; it is equally applicable on a global scale as it is on an

ecoregional scale. If a company or institution has a business interest in a

particular resource for the processes it is involved in, then it can be

moved from being an exploiter depleting that resource to a user protecting

its supplies.

 

This change can be seen in many areas beyond timber and fish; agricultural

operations that recognise natural enclaves help keep pests off their land;

or drinks companies that need to defend clean water supplies; also as

environmental perturbations increase we are seeing insurance companies and

financial institutions increasingly concerned with the risks associated with

global climate change - probably the biggest single challenge the

conservation community faces.

 

In these ways there now opens up a multiplicity of new avenues of

co-operation to the benefit of the world’s natural heritage, with sometimes

rather unusual bed-fellows working together for a common result.

 

 

A Strategy for Natural Heritage Conservation

Conservation is too much a high-risk business to assume that there is one

perfect answer.

A sound institutional strategy is essential to mobilising a global network

such as WWF, in the face of apparently insurmountable challenges.

 

In WWF a strategy was built around the concept of the Global 200 ecoregions

providing a geographical focus and on-the-ground experience of what it takes

to deliver environmental solutions, along with a set of global issues such

as the FSC and MSC described above.

 

These came together as a set of priorities for the organisation for which

specific targets were established, and measurement systems put in place to

monitor progress towards those targets.

 

These became the guiding lights for all the branches of the organisation,

enabling each branch to engage in a global effort that could create change

for the better.

 

Global, yet local

Each set of activities was rooted in a national context so that the

solutions could be delivered in a locally appropriate manner, which greatly

increased their uptake and probability of success. This helped to build

teamwork on a global scale.

 

However, this should not be regarded as a ‘blueprint’ or perfect solution

for the world’s environmental challenges. Conservation is too much a

high-risk business to assume that there is one perfect answer.

 

Constantly adapting

Just as the world is dynamic so conservation organisations too have to be

dynamic, constantly looking for new opportunities and new solutions,

reacting to change in the way the world operates, engaging that change and

adapting strategies accordingly.

 

 

 

Conservation Organisations as a Facet of Civil Society

many rites, rituals, taboos and traditional belief systems are related to

both the positive and negative forces of nature

The inception, development and impact of organisations such as WWF are a

reflection of the relationship between people and nature. Its very existence

is a symptom of concern amongst certain sectors of society, driven by the

apparent lack of concern by others.

 

Human societies contain an almost endless variety of values, and for many of

these values to involve nature is not surprising.

 

For millennia nature shaped human culture

The forces of nature shaped the evolution of Homo sapiens to what we are

today. Those same forces also shaped human society.

 

The mastery of centralised agriculture gave human societies the luxury of

organising social structures by releasing certain individuals from the need

to be food providers.

 

But it was nature that provided the wild species for domestication, and it

was nature that maintained soil structure and fertility, that provided

water, and until recent years predictable seasonal climates for crops to

grow.

 

It was also nature that provided the diseases that damaged domestic produce

and killed people.

 

It is thus hardly surprising that many rites, rituals, taboos and

traditional belief systems are related to both the positive and negative

forces of nature in the hopes that appeasement will create a benign result.

Some of these traditions are aimed specifically at prevention of

over-exploitation of resources. In this way nature has determined many

aspects of our culture.

 

Ironically, as human understanding of the environment grew, and as we became

more skilled at managing certain aspects of nature, then so grew a new

belief, in the20th century, that nature could no longer set the limits for

human societies.

 

Culture now began to shape nature

Thus businesses, agriculture, forestry and modern ‘hunting’ in the form of

commercial fishing began to push to the limits our relationships with

natural cycles and nature’s production. This was aided by artificial

nutrients and chemical inputs which improved the response of many species

and supported the idea that there were no limits to our exploitation of

nature.

 

Thus our culture began to shape nature. We now know that this was not the

end of the story; whilst nature lost the battle with culture for a while,

the impact was felt.

 

The LPR quantifies this, and our experiences with extreme weather events,

with rivers that no longer reach the sea, with crashing fish stocks, and

forests that once never burned now doing so on an annual basis, all cause us

to live the environmental consequences of the maverick approach that certain

sectors of our society adopted.

 

This being the case, it is probably quite normal that the part of our

society that is concerned by these experiences should invent and maintain an

environmental ethic and activist movement, of which WWF is one

manifestation.

 

Culture once again responded to nature.

 

The nature of WWF

The interest of people in nature is also reflected in the structure of WWF

as an organisation. Although it has one name and one ‘brand’ and all the

consistency of the corporate world that goes with such things, WWF also has

several million members spread around the world, and its very composition is

one of semi-autonomous organisations which can build a strong local identity

and reach out and tap into the way conservation is best manifested in each

country.

 

This is important as, for the reasons already mentioned, relationships with

nature involve strong cultural ties, and the way concern is expressed is in

the form determined by the culture of the country.

 

Impact of the internet

This ‘people’s network’ approach has gained strength in recent years through

the Internet age. In 2006 more than 10 million people visited WWF’s websites

around the world to learn immediately what is happening in the world.

 

The same medium has enabled more than a million people to take direct action

online to lobby decision makers to move in the right direction, and to

congratulate those that already had. It is remarkable that this modern

technology has enabled individuals in our modern society to have even

greater engagement than ever before.

 

In an iterative process our culture will continue to shape our attitudes to

nature, just as nature’s response to our attitudes will continue to shape

our culture.

 

 

Looking to the Future

As time advances the world will inevitably look more closely at the natural

environment, we will begin to talk less about conservation of species and

habitats and more about environmental security.

 

Those species and habitats are the very fabric within which our own human

lives are woven.

 

For thousands of years anthropologists have shown us how human societies

close to nature have recognised their interdependence and have evolved

cultural practices and taboos that were kind to nature and ensured the

sustainability of their lives, long before the word ‘sustainable’ was

invented.

 

In our modern, over-engineered society we have lost sight of that

interdependence and the fabric is beginning to fray. But out of this and the

associated problems the cycle is slowly turning.

 

Climate-induced disasters are making us realise that we are unable to

control our environment, but that we must live within its constraints. The

year 2005 gave the world the Kyoto protocol - the first small step in the

international effort to combat the worst of the threats to our security.

 

The same year also gave us hurricane Katrina which, far from being the most

powerful hurricane we have seen, demonstrated most aptly that we cannot

engineer the natural world and that if we assume too much then our cities

run the risk of being laid waste.

 

The future is not gloomy, however

The solutions exist, and for the few that don’t we are an incredibly

creative species.

 

The political will is often lacking, but democratic processes can create

that also. The commercial world has learned that it cannot simply take ad

infinitum.

 

With creativity, understanding and co-operation it will be possible in

future to enjoy a secure environment and a high-quality lifestyle both at

the same time.

 

The ultimate goal of WWF is to build a future in which humans live in

harmony with nature; a long time ago this was the case.

 

Will we ever get back there again?

 

Perhaps not, but there will always be an active sector of human society

which will try to regain the lost ground.

 

But Stolan stressed that he was not in a position to launch such an

organization himself. Huxley therefore contacted ornithologist Max

Nicholson, Director General of Britain's Nature Conservancy, who took up the

challenge with enthusiasm.

 

By spring 1961, Nicholson had gathered together a group of scientists and

advertising and public relations experts, all committed to establishing an

organization of the kind Stolan had suggested. Prominent among those experts

was another ornithologist Peter Scott, a vice-president of IUCN, who was

later to become the new organization's first chairman.

 

The group decided to base its operations in neutral Switzerland, where IUCN

had already transferred its headquarters to a villa in the small town of

Morges on the northern shores of Lake Geneva. The new organization, which

planned to work closely with IUCN, was to share this villa.

 

IUCN welcomed the fledgling organization: " Together, " both parties agreed,

" we will harness public opinion and educate the world about the necessity

for conservation. "

 

Meanwhile, Chi-Chi the panda had arrived at London Zoo. Aware of the need

for a strong, recognizable symbol that would overcome all language barriers,

the group agreed that the big, furry animal with her appealing,

black-patched eyes, would make an excellent

logo<http://www.panda.org/questions/user/response.cfm?hdnQuestionId=269200217115\

44>.

The black and white panda has since come to stand as a symbol for the

conservation movement as a whole.

 

WWF was officially formed and registered as a charity on 11 September 1961.

The international fund-raising mission was about to begin.

 

The founders decided that the most efficient approach would be to set up

offices in different countries. They therefore launched National Appeals,

which would send up to two-thirds of the funds raised to the international

secretariat in Morges (now known as WWF International), and keep the

remainder to spend on conservation projects of their own choice.

 

WWF planned to work, wherever possible, with existing non-governmental

organizations, and base its grants on the best scientific knowledge

available a policy which has been adhered to ever since. Its first grants

went to IUCN, the International Council for Bird Preservation (ICBP, now

Birdlife International), the International Waterfowl Research Bureau, and

the International Youth Federation for the Study and Conservation of Nature.

 

 

The first National Appeal, with HRH The Duke of Edinburgh as President, was

launched in the United Kingdom on 23 November 1961. On 1 December, it was

followed by the United States, and a few days later, Switzerland.

 

Since then, WWF has grown considerably. National Appeals are now known as

National Organizations. Twenty-four of these are affiliated to WWF

International, while five organizations which operate under a different name

are associated with WWF. Each National Organization is a separate legal

entity, responsible to its own Board and accountable to its donors. WWF

International itself is accountable to the National Organizations, donors,

and the Swiss authorities. Most of the members of WWF International's Board

and committees are drawn from the Boards and Chief Executive Officers of the

National Organizations. WWF also has programme offices throughout the world

and representatives in many countries.

 

In its first three years, WWF raised and donated almost US$1.9 million to

conservation projects. Much of this money was given by individuals, moved by

newspaper articles such as a seven-page feature on the organization in the

Daily Mirror newspaper which provoked the British public to send in £60,000

within a week of its publication.

 

Some of the early grants, such as those to IUCN and ICBP, were large.

Another substantial donation went to the Charles Darwin Foundation for the

Galápagos Islands. WWF still funds projects in the Galápagos, and has helped

the Ecuadorean government to establish the Galápagos National Park, control

introduced species which threaten the islands' rare indigenous plants and

animals, and set up research training and education programmes. The

Galápagos Islands could now stand as an example of the way low-impact

tourism can be integrated with research, development, and conservation

initiatives.

 

Many grants, however, were small. In 1962, WWF gave US$131 " to enable Mr E P

Gee of Upper Shillong, Assam, to visit the Rann of Kutch to ascertain the

total numbers and present trends of the population of Indian wild ass. " Mr

Gee found 870. By 1975, numbers had dropped to 400 and the wild ass seemed

to be on the verge of extinction. So a rescue mission was launched, a wild

ass sanctuary established, and by the mid-1980s, the population had risen to

an impressive total of well over 2,000.

 

Other early grants went to provide a road grader and rotary mower for

Kenya's Masai Mara Game Reserve; to fund a survey of Costa Rica's few

remaining white bearded spider monkeys; and to enable Professor Kim Hon Kyu,

chairman of the Korean Section of the ICBP to go to an ICBP conference in

New York and attend the first ever World Conference on National Parks in

Seattle.

 

In 1969, WWF joined forces with the Spanish government to purchase a section

of the Guadalquivir Delta marshes and establish the Coto Doñana National

Park. This important wetland area, one of the last refuges of the Spanish

imperial eagle and the Iberian lynx, is constantly threatened by schemes to

increase local agricultural output and tourism. WWF still supports Coto

Doñana, and is fighting proposals to drain the marshes and syphon off water

to irrigate agricultural land along the coast and to expand tourist

facilities.

Establishing the Trust Fund From the very beginning, WWF has been aware that

people donate money to the organization because they want to give direct

support to conservation.

 

In 1970, HRH Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, then President of WWF

International, launched an important initiative that was to provide WWF with

the solid, independent financial base it needed. The organization set up a

US$10 million fund, known as The 1001: A Nature Trust, to which 1,001

individuals each contributed US$10,000. Since establishing The 1001, WWF

International has been able to use interest from the trust fund to help meet

its basic administration costs.

 

So when WWF helped the Indian government launch Project Tiger in 1973, the

public was assured that its donations would go towards saving India's

charismatic, but severely endangered, tigers. Mrs Indira Gandhi set up a

task force to carry out a comprehensive six-year tiger conservation plan and

the government put aside land for nine tiger reserves. India later added six

more reserves. Nepal followed suit with three, and Bangladesh with one.

 

Two years later, WWF embarked on its first worldwide Tropical Rainforest

Campaign, raising money and arranging for several dozen representative

tropical rainforest areas in Central and West Africa, Southeast Asia, and

Latin America, to be managed as national parks or reserves.

 

Forest conservation has been an important WWF focus ever since. The

organization's Forest Programme now supports 350 projects all over the

world, in an effort to conserve not only tropical rainforests but also the

forests of the temperate zones.

 

The 1970s were an exciting and active time. The launch of an ambitious

marine campaign, " The Seas Must Live " , in 1976, enabled WWF to set up marine

sanctuaries for whales, dolphins, and seals, and to protect marine turtle

nesting sites. The decade drew to a close with a campaign to " Save the

Rhino " , which rapidly raised over US$1 million to combat rhino poaching.

 

Meanwhile, concerned that trade in animals, plants, and commodities such as

ivory and rhino horn was driving many species towards extinction, IUCN had

created a body to monitor trade in wildlife and wildlife products. The new

organization, known as TRAFFIC (Trade Records Analysis of Fauna and Flora in

Commerce) opened its first office in the United Kingdom in 1976. With WWF's

help, TRAFFIC has now grown into a network of 17 offices on five continents,

and has played a major role in persuading governments all over the world to

increase species protection and strengthen wildlife trade controls.

 

All this activity meant that WWF had long outgrown its villa in Morges, and

desperately needed new premises. In 1979, the accommodation problem was

solved by an anonymous donation that enabled the organization to move to a

modern office block in Gland, along the lake, halfway between Geneva and

Lausanne.

*By the end of the 1970s, WWF had grown from a small organization that

concentrated on problems such as endangered species and habitat destruction,

into an international institution involved in all manner of conservation

issues. Perhaps the most important of these was the need to integrate

development with conservation. *

 

WWF marked the dawn of the 1980s by collaborating with IUCN and the United

Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on the publication of a joint World

Conservation Strategy. Endorsed by the United Nations Secretary General, the

Strategy was launched simultaneously in 34 world capitals.

 

It recommended a holistic approach to conservation and highlighted the

importance of using natural resources sustainably. Since the launch, 50

countries have formulated and initiated their own national conservation

strategies, based on its recommendations. A simplified version, How to Save

the World, was subsequently published in several languages.

 

Meanwhile, WWF continued to build up its popular support base. In 1981, when

HRH The Duke of Edinburgh took over from John Loudon as President of WWF

International, the organization had one million regular supporters

worldwide. Fundraising efforts received a boost in 1983, with the launch of

the Conservation Stamp Collection. Under this scheme, WWF in collaboration

with Groth AG has worked with the postal authorities in more than 200

countries, helping them select threatened species to feature on official

postage stamps. The programme has so far raised over US$13 million.

 

By 1986, WWF had come to realize that its name no longer reflected the scope

of its activities. The WWF Network therefore decided to publicize their

expanded mandate by changing their name from World Wildlife Fund to the

World Wide Fund For Nature. The United States and Canada, however, retained

the old name.

 

As part of its 25th anniversary celebrations, WWF invited leaders from the

world's five main religions to a two-day retreat in the historic Italian

town of Assisi. After the retreat, the leaders issued declarations that

conservation was a fundamental element in their respective faiths. This led

to the formation of an international network, that now includes eight

religions, through which WWF and religious groups work together to achieve

common aims.

 

WWF's status as a non-governmental organization with whom governments are

happy to work means that it is extremely well positioned to press for

changes in government policy. In 1985, the organization helped bring about

an international moratorium on whaling. Since then, a whale sanctuary has

been established in the important Antarctic feeding grounds.

 

The fact that the organization has good relationships with governments has

also enabled it to negotiate debt-for-nature swaps, under which a portion of

a nation's debt is converted into funds for conservation. Debt-for-nature

swaps have been made with a number of countries, including Ecuador,

Madagascar, the Philippines, and Zambia.

The 1990s began with the launch of a revised mission and strategy. The

expanded mission reiterates WWF's commitment to nature conservation, and

classifies the organization's work into three interdependent categories: the

preservation of biological diversity, promoting the concept of sustainable

use of resources, and reducing wasteful consumption and pollution. The 1990

strategy aims to decentralize WWF's decision-making, and to increase

cooperation with local people.

 

The following year, building on lessons learned in the decade since the

launch of the World Conservation Strategy, WWF, IUCN, and UNEP joined forces

again to publish Caring for the Earth- A Strategy for Sustainable Living.

Launched in over 60 countries around the world, Caring for the Earth lists

132 actions people at all social and political levels can take to safeguard

or improve their environment, while simultaneously increasing the quality of

their life.

 

One of the most important ways in which people can help ensure the future

health of the planet is to cut down their consumption of fossil fuels. This

will reduce the damage that air pollution and acid rain inflict on people,

animals, and plants, and slow down the rate at which the world's weather

patterns are changing. WWF works to make people and governments aware of the

implications of climate change and to persuade them to reduce polluting

activities to a minimum.

 

The organization works with governments in two ways as collaborator and

lobbyist. For example, it cooperates with the government of Madagascar on an

environmental syllabus for use in the island's primary schools, and with the

Chinese Ministry of Forestry on a giant panda management plan.

 

In 1990, WWF helped bring about an international moratorium on the ivory

trade. And in 1992, it played a part in pressurizing governments to sign

conventions on biodiversity and climate change at the United Nations

Conference on Environment and Development the Earth Summit in Rio de

Janeiro. It is now working to ensure that those conventions are implemented

in an effective manner.

 

Perhaps more than any other event in recent years, the Earth Summit alerted

politicians and business people to the urgency of the environmental crisis

facing the modern world. Since the conference, WWF has been working to build

stronger relationships with the business community. In the UK, for example,

WWF is working with a group of retailers and manufacturers who are committed

to phasing out the sale of wood that does not come from independently

certified, well-managed forests.

 

WWF also maintains links with other non-governmental organizations both

national and international. It makes a particular point of responding to

local conservation needs, and working with local people. More and more

projects involve rural communities in making decisions as to how their

environment should be both used and conserved, while providing economic

incentives.

 

In Zambia's Kafue Flats, WWF has helped the government forge an important

link between development and conservation. Local people are trained as

wildlife scouts to monitor and report on the area's rapidly declining

population of lechwes antelopes adapted to living in swamp-like conditions.

Thanks to the scouts, and improved management techniques, lechwe numbers

have now increased to a level that permits culling. Trophy hunters pay to

hunt animals, and the money raised is reinvested in community development

and wildlife management.

 

WWF has always recognized the importance of working in partnership.

Cooperation is crucial whether it is with governments, other conservation

organizations, local communities, or with the millions of people whose

financial and moral support enables WWF to carry out conservation work

throughout the world.

 

At the end of 1993, Claude Martin took over as Director General of WWF

International, replacing Charles de Haes who had served in this position for

the previous 18 years. At the same time, the organization completed a

two-year network-wide evaluation of its conservation work. On the strength

of this study, it resolved to focus its activities on three key areas:

forests, freshwater ecosystems, and oceans and coasts. WWF believes that in

pursuing the new goals via carefully planned strategies, it will be able to

make the best use of its resources.

 

Contributions from individuals remain the organization's most important

source of funds, making up 53 per cent of its annual income.

 

If you care about the welfare of our planet, and the people, animals, and

plants that live on it, perhaps you would like to join those who support

WWF's conservation work by contacting either the Fundraising Director or the

Membership Officer at WWF International or your local WWF National

Organization.

 

*WWF in the new millennium

*To keep up with the evolving face of conservation and the environmental

movement, WWF has not only grown in size and stature but it has also matured

in its understanding of what has gone wrong and what is required to put

things right.

 

WWF's focus has evolved from its localized efforts in favour of single

species that characterized WWF in the 1960s, to new horizons encompassing

national, regional and global scales of complexity.

 

*Focus of work today*

" Our objectives have never been clearer - slow climate

change<http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/climate_change/index.cfm>,

reduce toxics <http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/toxics/index.cfm>in

the environment, protect our

oceans <http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/marine/index.cfm> and fresh

waters <http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/freshwater/index.cfm>,

stop deforestation<http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/forests/index.cfm>,

and save species <http://www.panda.org/species>, " says Dr Claude Martin,

former Director General of WWF International. " Our great achievement over

the past 40 years is spreading the message - through us people know that

nature counts. "

 

*Effective ways of working*

For WWF the answer lies in campaigning and lobbying, as well as working in

the field. We can work with subsistence farmers on their land or Presidents

in palaces to help achieve our goal of living in harmony with nature.

 

*The future*

In the coming years WWF will continue to assume its role as a credible and

influential global leader - influencing at the highest possible levels and

at the same time staying firmly in contact with the realities on the

ground<http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/where_we_work/index.cfm>.

WWF is about " doing conservation " , not simply talking about it!

 

If you want to add your voice to WWF's lobbying activities go to

passport.panda.org

 

*Become part of the solution*

Our supporters (nearly five million throughout the world) have already done

so much in the past to help us fight for nature. Without them we would never

have achieved so much. Will you join <http://www.wwf.org/> them? We need

your help to succeed.

 

 

On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 1:47 AM, Merritt Clifton <anmlpeplwrote:

 

> >Among Peter Scott's contributions to conservation has been his role in

> >saving the Hawaiian goose, or nene, from extinction.

>

> To put this project in proper context, it was begun by a

> local Boy Scout troop in 1962, with just 35 birds.

>

> There are now about 370 nene, only about a third of them in

> the wild, despite enormous infusions of funding from WWF and the

> Hawaii and U.S. governments, and many hundreds of other animals have

> been killed to protect the wild flocks.

>

> On the whole, the Boy Scouts seem to have made the best showing.

>

> > Still another has been in helping to persuade the government of

> >Ecuador to make the Galapagos Islands a national park, providing

> >protection for its unique bird life.

>

> The Galapagos is about as well-protected a habitat as any

> given Chennai intersection. Indeed, the Galapagos may be among the

> most encroached, poached, & squatted upon few islands in the world,

> and the government of Ecuador has done precious little to stop it;

> Ecuadoran naval officers have been prominent among the exploiters of

> the surrounding waters.

>

> The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has supplied a vessel &

> crew to assist the Galapagos National Park wardens in patrolling for

> the past decade, but this effort has been just a fraction of what

> WWF could have funded if WWF had ever been really serious about

> protecting the Gallapagos.

>

> >His greatest contribution, however, has been through the World Wildlife

> >Fund, which he established in 1961 with two friends, E. M. (Max)

> >Nicholson and Guy Mountfort. It has been a remarkable force for

> >wildlife conservation.

>

> WWF is the leading global voice of the idea that wildlife

> should " pay for itself " through " sustainable use, " meaning sport

> hunting and the sale of wildlife products.

>

> This was apparent right from the first when Peter Scott's

> hand-picked WWF founding board included captive bird-shooters Prince

> Philip of Britain and Prince Bernhardt of The Netherlands, the

> whaler Aristotle Onassis, and then-National Rifle Association

> president C.R. " Pink " Gutermuth.

>

> The most remarkable aspect of WWF is how much money it raises

> from animal advocates who fail to realize that it is in effect the

> largest and most influential of all the pro-hunting lobbies.

>

> --

> Merritt Clifton

> Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

> P.O. Box 960

> Clinton, WA 98236

>

> Telephone: 360-579-2505

> Fax: 360-579-2575

> E-mail: anmlpepl <anmlpepl%40whidbey.com>

> Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

>

> [ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing

> original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide,

> founded in 1992. Our readership of 30,000-plus includes the

> decision-makers at more than 10,000 animal protection organizations.

> We have no alignment or affiliation with any other entity. $24/year;

> for free sample, send address.]

>

>

>