World Wildlife Fund

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World Wildlife Fund

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is an international conservation organization founded in 1961, and known internationally as the World Wide Fund for Nature. The World Wildlife Fund acts with other U.S. organizations in a network to conserve the natural environment and ecological processes essential to life. Particular attention is paid to endangered species and to natural habitats important for human welfare. In hundreds of projects conducted or supported around the world, WWF helps protect endangered wildlife and habitats and helps protect the earth's biodiversity through fieldwork, scientific research, institutional development, wildlife trade monitoring, public policy initiatives, technical assistance and training, environmental education , and communications.

WWF has articulated nine goals that guide its work:

to protect habitat
to protect individual species
to promote ecologically sound development
to support scientific investigation
to promote education in developing countries
to provide training for local wildlife professionals
to encourage self-sufficiency in developing countries
to monitor international wildlife trade
to influence public opinion and the policies of governments and private institutions

Toward these goals, WWF monitors international trade in wild plants and animals through its TRAFFIC (Trade Records Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce) program, part of an international network in cooperation with IUCN—The World Conservation Union . TRAFFIC focuses on the trade regulations of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), tracking and reporting on traded wildlife species; helping governments comply with CITES provisions; developing training materials and enforcement tools for wildlife-trade enforcement officers; pressing for stronger enforcement under national wildlife trade laws; and seeking protection for newly threatened species.

Other recent WWF projects have included programs to save the African elephant, especially through banning ivory imports under CITES legislation. The organization also has undertaken projects to preserve tropical rain forests; to identify conservation priorities in the earth's biogeographical regions; to halt overexploitation of renewable resources; and to create new parks and wildlife preserves to conserve species before they become endangered or threatened. Based on WWF's conservation efforts, The Charles Darwin Foundation for the Galapagos Islands awarded WWF an institutional seat on their Board of Directors.

WWF also funded a study of more than 2,000 projects or activities reviewed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service between 1986 and 1991. The study found that only 18 of these projects were blocked or withdrawn because of detrimental effects to human populations. The study also showed that the Northwest lost more timber jobs to automation of timber cutting and milling, increased exports of raw logs, and a shift of the industry to the Southeastern United States, than it may lose from the listing of the northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina ) as an endangered species.

WWF has been credited with saving some 30 endangered animal species from extinction , most notably the giant panda , which has become the group's logo. Using Geographic Information Systems satellite technology, WWF has identified regions where conservation of distinct animal and plant species are most needed. By overlaying these areas with existing parks and projects, WWF is able to see where it needs to concentrate conservation programs. The organization publishes a wide variety of materials, including the periodicals WWF Letter, TRAFFIC, and Tropical Forest Conservation. Booklets produced include "Speaker and News Media Sourcebook: A Guide to Experts in Domestic and International Environmental Issues," for news media, policymakers, and organizations. Educational materials, research papers, and books jointly published include The Gaia Atlas of Future Worlds: Challenge and Opportunity in an Age of Change (by Norman Myers); Options for Conservation: The Different Roles of Nongovernmental Conservation Organizations (by Sarah Fitzgerald); WWF Atlas of the Environment (By Geoffrey Lean, et al.); and The Official World Wildlife Fund Guide to Endangered Species of North America. In 1996 the WWF produced a nationwide environmental program, Windows on the Wild, for educators concerning the challenges of global conservation.

[Linda Rehkopf ]