Wildlife Conservation Network

Last updated
Wildlife Conservation Network
Founded2002
FounderCharles Knowles, John Lukas and Akiko Yamazaki [1]
Type Non-profit organization
Focus Environmentalism
Location
Area served
World wide
MethodCommunity based partnerships, fundraising, consultancy
Key people
  • Charles Knowles (President)
  • Rebecca Patton (Director / Vice President)
  • Jean-Gaël E. Collomb, Ph.D. (Executive Director))
  • Akiko Yamazaki (Founder)
Website wildnet.org

The Wildlife Conservation Network (WCN) is a United States-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that protects endangered wildlife by supporting conservationists in the field who promote coexistence between wildlife and people. WCN does this by providing its partners with capital, strategic capacity-building services, training, and operational support. WCN has been given a top rating amongst wildlife conservation charities, with a four star rating on Charity Navigator. [2]

Contents

Founded in 2002, Wildlife Conservation Network was built on a venture capital fundraising model to identify entrepreneurial conservationists and projects and give them the support they need to effectively run their programs. WCN brings donors together with field conservationists to develop personal relationships and allow donors to see how their support is making an impact for wildlife. WCN’s 100% donation model means every dollar donated to a specific species is guaranteed to go to the conservationists who protect that species. [3]

Conservation Partners

Wildlife Conservation Network forms partnerships with field-based conservation projects committed to protecting endangered wildlife and gives them the support and resources they need for their work. Partners as of 2022 include:

Wildlife Funds

WCN's Wildlife Funds tackle the diverse range of challenges that certain species face in a way that a single field organization could not. These Funds invest in projects from many organizations to protect species across the entirety of their habitats.

Elephant Crisis Fund

The Elephant Crisis Fund (ECF), a partnership between WCN and Save the Elephants, was established in 2013 to bring the ivory crisis to an end and create a better future for elephants in Africa. While there are signs of hope with elephant poaching in decline, the ivory trade continues across Africa and the ECF remains committed to ending it. The ECF has also expanded its strategies to address other threats to elephants by supporting projects that promote human-elephant coexistence and protect elephant landscapes, giving elephants the space to survive and recover.

Organizations supported by the ECF include Wildlife Conservation Society, Tsavo Trust, and Wildlife Direct, among many others.

Lion Recovery Fund

The Lion Recovery Fund (LRF) was created in 2017 by WCN to give conservationists the support they need to address the biggest threats to lions. The LRF invests in projects that protect lions from poaching, retaliatory killing, defend and restore lion habitat, and protect lion prey species from bushmeat poachers and competition with domestic livestock.

Organizations supported by the LRF include Panthera, Wildlife Conservation Society, WildAid, WildCru, Big Life Foundation, and Ruaha Carnivore Project, to name a few.

Pangolin Crisis Fund

Pangolins are hunted for their scales, body parts, and meat, making them the most illegally trafficked mammals on Earth. All eight species of pangolins are dangerously close to extinction. To prevent pangolins from vanishing, WCN and Save Pangolins created the Pangolin Crisis Fund (PCF) in 2019 to protect pangolins and their habitats, help combat illegal wildlife traffickers, and reduce the demand for pangolin products in Asia and Africa.

Organizations supported by the PCF include the Tikki Hywood Foundation, Wildlife Crime Prevention, the African Pangolin Working Group, World Wildlife Fund-Pakistan, and WildAid, among others.

Rhino Recovery Fund

In 2020, WCN launched the Rhino Recovery Fund (RRF) to protect rhinos from poachers and safeguard their habitats. The RRF supports projects that fight against rhino poaching and the trafficking of rhino horns. The Fund also supports projects that restore rhino landscapes and bolster protected area management for rhinos in the wild.

Organizations supported by the RRF include the Frankfurt Zoological Society, the Mozambique Wildlife Alliance, Tsavo Trust, Wildlife ACT, Save the Rhino Trust Namibia, and the International Rhino Foundation, to name a few.

Emergency Relief Fund

In response to the upheaval created by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, WCN created its Emergency Relief Fund (ERF). The ERF supports struggling conservationists and local communities who protect wildlife during emergency crises, which often generate devastating health, social, economic, and political challenges. This leads to increased pressure on wildlife, halted conservation fundraising, and the destabilization of security for communities.

As the COVID-19 pandemic begins to subside, the ERF has expanded to help conservationists get through a variety of emergencies, such as drought and civil conflict.

California Wildlife Program

In 2021, WCN began working in North America by launching the California Wildlife Program (CWP), which connects habitats for fragmented puma populations and other California wildlife. By creating designated wildlife corridors, the CWP will reconnect isolated puma populations and prevent them from vanishing due to urban development. This will also protect many other California species that share the same ecosystems, including deer, foxes, owls, salamanders, and many more.

Rising Wildlife Leaders

Scholarship Program

Local people are wildlife’s true stewards, so to support conservationists from within these communities, WCN launched its Scholarship Program in 2006. This program focuses on conservation students committed to working on projects in their respective countries. As of 2022, the Scholarship Program has supported 174 emerging conservationists across 46 countries, helping fund their studies so they can take prominent roles as tomorrow’s conservation leaders.

Career Program

For local conservationists who are already established as leaders and are looking to expand their skills, WCN established its Career Program in 2021. This program invests in the growth of those already leading conservation efforts in their communities around the world. In its inaugural year, the Career Program has invested in six promising conservationists so they can create longer lasting impacts for wildlife and local communities.

Wildlife Conservation Expo

2012 Expo at the Mission Bay Conference Center, San Francisco Wildlife Conservation Network Expo.jpg
2012 Expo at the Mission Bay Conference Center, San Francisco

WCN hosts a semi-annual event, the Wildlife Conservation Expo, that brings together donors and conservationists from around the world to hear the latest news from the field, connect with fellow wildlife advocates, and celebrate wildlife. Wildlife Conservation Expos draw thousands of attendees from a global community dedicated to wildlife conservation. Expo features presentations on the latest work from WCN's Conservation Partners, Wildlife Funds, and other programs, and also features other conservation experts and organizations as guest speakers. Through these presentations, conservationists take attendees on a journey into the field, showing them what it takes to defend endangered wildlife and promote coexistence between them and people.

While Expo has historically been an in-person event held in the San Francisco Bay Area, it has expanded to also take place online to include a wider global audience. [6] Notable keynote speakers have included Dr. Jane Goodall, [7] Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, [8] Peter Matthiessen [9] Dr. Claudio Sillero-Zubiri [10] and Dr. Greg Rasmussen. [10] Past guest speakers have included African Marine Mammal Conservation Organization, MareCet, and the Tikki Hywood Foundation.

Other programs

Solar project

In 2005, WCN started providing solar electric systems such as solar water pumps, cookers, lighting, hot water and water purification systems to its partner projects in South America, Africa and Asia. [11]

Related Research Articles

The Born Free Foundation is an international wildlife charity that campaigns to "Keep Wildlife in the Wild". It protects wild animals in their natural habitat, campaigns against the keeping of wild animals in captivity and rescues wild animals in need. It also promotes compassionate conservation, which takes into account the welfare of individual animals in conservation initiatives. Born Free also creates and provides educational materials and activities that reflect the charity's values.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trophy hunting</span> Hunting of wild animals for trophies

Trophy hunting is a form of hunting for sport in which parts of the hunted wild animals are kept and displayed as trophies. The animal being targeted, known as the "game", is typically a mature male specimen from a popular species of collectable interests, usually of large sizes, holding impressive horns, antlers, furs or manes. Most trophies consist of only select parts of the animal, which are prepared for display by a taxidermist. The parts most commonly kept vary by species, but often include head, hide, tusks, horns, or antlers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Fund for Animal Welfare</span> Non-profit US organization

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) is one of the largest animal welfare and conservation charities in the world. The organization works to rescue individual animals, safeguard populations, preserve habitat, and advocate for greater protections. Brian Davies founded IFAW. IFAW was instrumental in ending the commercial seal hunt in Canada. In 1983 Europe banned all whitecoat harp seals products. This ban helped save over 1 million seals. IFAW operates in over 40 countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wildlife Warriors</span> International conservationist non-profit organization

Wildlife Warriors, originally called the Steve Irwin Conservation Foundation, is a conservationist organization that was established in 2002 by Steve Irwin and his wife Terri, to involve and educate others in the protection of injured, threatened or endangered wildlife. Terri is still involved in the organization as patron and significant advisor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Communal wildlife conservancies in Namibia</span>

Namibia is one of few countries in the world to specifically address habitat conservation and protection of natural resources in their constitution. Article 95 states, "The State shall actively promote and maintain the welfare of the people by adopting international policies aimed at the following: maintenance of ecosystems, essential ecological processes, and biological diversity of Namibia, and utilization of living natural resources on a sustainable basis for the benefit of all Namibians, both present and future.".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Save the Elephants</span>

Save the Elephants (STE) was founded in 1993 by Iain Douglas-Hamilton. A research & conservation organization, Save the Elephants (STE) is a UK-registered charity headquartered in Nairobi with its principal research station in Samburu National Reserve in northern Kenya.

Felidae Conservation Fund (FCF) is a California-based non-profit organization dedicated to preserving wild cats and their habitats. The organization supports and promotes international wild cat research and conservation by collaborating on field research projects, partnering with other environmental organizations, and developing community outreach and education programs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wildlife Alliance</span>

Wildlife Alliance is an international non-profit forest and wildlife conservation organization with current programs in Cambodia. It is headquartered in New York City, with offices in Phnom Penh. The logo of the organization is the Asian elephant, an emblematic species and the namesake for the Southwest Elephant Corridor that Wildlife Alliance saved when it was under intense threat of poaching and habitat destruction in 2001. It is today one of the last remaining unfragmented elephant corridors in Asia. Due to Government rangers' and Wildlife Alliance's intensive anti-poaching efforts, there have been zero elephant killings since 2006. Dr. Suwanna Gauntlett is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Wildlife Alliance, and one of the original founders of WildAid. The organization is governed by a board of directors and an international advisory board that provides guidance on strategy, fundraising, and outreach.

Tusk Trust is a British non-profit organisation set up in 1990 to advance wildlife conservation across Africa. The charity funds the protection of African elephant, African rhinoceros and African lion, along with many other threatened species across Africa. Tusk’s mission is to amplify the impact of progressive conservation initiatives across Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Elephant Foundation</span>

The International Elephant Foundation (IEF) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation. Formed by individuals and institutions, IEF is dedicated to the conservation of African and Asian elephants worldwide.

The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) is an international conservation organization dedicated to the preservation of Africa's wildlife and wild lands. AWF aims to protect the continent's wild lands as well as its wildlife and natural resources.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tswalu Kalahari Reserve</span> Privately-owned game reserve in South Africa

The Tswalu Kalahari Reserve is a privately owned game reserve in the Northern Cape, South Africa. It is South Africa's largest private game reserve, covering an area of over 111,000 hectares.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spectacled Bear Conservation Society</span>

Spectacled Bear Conservation (SBC) is a team of researchers and conservationists working to study and protect the endangered spectacled bear, also known as the Andean bear. Spectacled bears are the only surviving species of bear native to South America, and the only surviving member of the subfamily Tremarctinae, the short-faced bears. Their range is the Andean Mountains from Venezuela to Chile.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smart Parks</span> UK-based charity

Smart Parks is a UK-based charity that specializes in providing aerial surveillance and monitoring services through the use of unnamed aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly knowns as drones. The organization was founded in 2012 and launched publicly in 2013, and operates as a registered charity in the UK and a private foundation in the Netherlands. The organization was formerly named ShadowView.

Steven R. Galster is an American environmental and human rights investigator and counter-trafficking program designer. Since 1987, he has planned and participated in investigations and remedial programs to stop wildlife and human trafficking and to mitigate corruption and build governance in Asia, Africa, Russia, South America, and the USA.

Resson Kantai Duff is Kenyan conservationist and the deputy director at Ewaso Lions.

Nguyễn Văn Thái is a Vietnamese conservationist who works to protecting the Critically Endangered pangolin. In 2014, he founded Save Vietnam's Wildlife (SVW), an NGO that has rescued more than 2,125 wild animals from 45 species, including 1,671 pangolins, and rehabilitated and returned over 60% of them back to the wild.

References

  1. Estrella, Cicero A. (7 February 2003). "Wildlife Inc. / Silicon Valley business whizzes put their savvy to protecting endangered species around the world". San Francisco Chronicle.
  2. "Wildlife Conservation Network". Charity Navigator.
  3. "Disney Honors WCN Director Isabella Rossellini and WCN Partner Iain Douglas-Hamilton as Wildlife Advocates". Business Wire.
  4. "Wildlife Projects". Wildlife Conservation Network.
  5. "Spectacled Bears". Wildlife Conservation Network.
  6. "AFC Exhibiting at Wildlife Conservation Network Expo". Artists for Conservation.
  7. "San Francisco, CA: Dr. Goodall's Keynote Speech at the WCN Expo". The Jane Goodall Institute.
  8. "Wildlife Conservation Expo". The Eyes of Thailand.
  9. "Wildlife expo showcases leading conservationists". Los Altos Town Crier. Archived from the original on 2011-10-02. Retrieved 2011-08-02.
  10. 1 2 "Wildlife Conservation Network Expo". Wildlife Conservation Network.
  11. "Wildlife Conservation Network Receives $1 Million Gift for Scholarship Program; Scholarship Invests in Local People As Future Leaders of Wildlife Conservation Around the World". Business Wire.[ permanent dead link ]