WILD Foundation

Last updated
WILD Foundation
The International Wilderness Leadership Foundation Inc.
Founded1974;49 years ago (1974)
Type Nonprofit
23-7389749
Legal status 501 (c)(3)
Headquarters Boulder, Colorado
ProductGlobal Conservation Fund
Board Chair
Joel Holtrop
Chief Executive Officer
Amy Lewis
Joel Holtrop; Clay Stranger; Ed Sanders; Charlotte Baron; Swati Hingorani; Lindsay Ellis; Jonathan Miller; Lena Georgas; Kat Haber; Keith Sproule; David Barron
Website https://wild.org/

The WILD Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization that was founded in 1974 by two South Africans and based in Boulder, Colorado.

Contents

History

The WILD Foundation was founded in 1974 by South African game ranger Ian Player and his Zulu mentor Magqubu Ntombela. One of their most notable conservation efforts prior to forming the WILD Foundation was called "Operation Rhino", the apartheid government's attempt to save the white rhinoceros from extinction in the 1960s. Recent escalations in poaching in the 2010s have brought rhinoceros preservation back to the forefront of WILD's efforts. [1]

After leaving the government wildlife service, Player founded the Wilderness Leadership School, taking people on five-day hikes in the African wilderness. Started during apartheid, this school was the first organization in Africa giving its participants a thorough wilderness experience regardless of race.

In 1974, the ideas of conservation that inspired the Wilderness Leadership School expanded into the concept that became the WILD Foundation and WILD's sister organizations in the Wilderness Network. Laurens van der Post worked closely with Player in the early days of WILD and was a founding member of the board of directors, serving until 1987. Originally named the International Wilderness Leadership Foundation, the organization began doing business as the WILD Foundation in 1988. WILD has been a member of the World Commission on Protected Areas (International Union for Conservation of Nature) since 1988, and founder/co-chair of the IUCN Wilderness Specialist Group.

Since its founding, the WILD Foundation has worked on scores of field projects in dozens of countries. In 1983, the WILD Foundation established the World Wilderness Congress. The WILD Foundation has helped foster organizations, such as the Cheetah Conservation Fund based in Namibia, National Geographic photographer James Balog's Extreme Ice Survey, and the International League of Conservation Photographers, a consortium of the world's top photographers dedicated to "furthering environmental and cultural conservation through ethical photography".

For six years until about 2010, WILD and iLCP partnered with the cement company Cemex to produce a book series about such topics as biodiversity, the human footprint, transboundary conservation and climate change.[ citation needed ] Starting in the 1990s CEMEX and local Mexican NGOs worked to realize CEMEX's conservation projects in the Maderas del Carmen region in northern Mexico. The Maderas del Carmen was the first legally designated wilderness area in Latin America. [2] This work led to the establishment of an "Area of Bi-National Environmental Interest" straddling 10 million acres of Texas/Mexico border. [3] This area was supported by presidents Barack Obama and Felipe Calderón and signed into law in November 2011. [4]

The World Wilderness Congress

The World Wilderness Congress is an environmental forum first convened in South Africa in 1977. The congress has become WILD's flagship program and has convened nine times on five continents, drawing thousands of people from around the world. World leaders, such as Mexico's President Felipe Calderón (2009), Norway's Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland (1987), Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser (1980); notable people such as Jane Goodall and Sylvia Earle, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, Thor Heyerdahl, Wangari Maathai, Mario Molina; tribal and community leaders such as Tashka Yawanawa, Oren Lyons, Maqgubu Ntombela; the heads of major international corporations; and hundreds of conservationists have participated in the congress.[ citation needed ]

Nature Needs Half

At the 9th World Wilderness Congress in Mérida, Mexico, WILD, with the collaboration of a spectrum of international organizations, governments and individuals, introduced Nature Needs Half, which aspires that humans give up use of half of land and water on Earth, in order to support wilderness. Marine biologist Sylvia Earle and Jane Goodall have endorsed Nature Needs Half, with Earle's only criticism being that she "hoped that half would be enough".[ citation needed ] Since its inception, WILD has begun collecting and conducting case studies of places around the world that have, or are on track to achieve, at least half protection.[ citation needed ]

Wilderness Foundation Global

The WILD Foundation is a founding member of Wilderness Foundation Global, a consortium of independent, like-minded organizations consisting of WILD Foundation (US), The Wilderness Foundation (SA), The Wilderness Foundation (UK) and the Wilderness Leadership School (SA). Wilderness Foundation Global works worldwide to:

Publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilderness</span> Undisturbed natural environment

Wilderness or wildlands are natural environments on Earth that have not been significantly modified by human activity, or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally referred to terrestrial environments, though growing attention is being placed on marine wilderness. Recent maps of wilderness suggest it covers roughly one-quarter of Earth's terrestrial surface, but is being rapidly degraded by human activity. Even less wilderness remains in the ocean, with only 13.2% free from intense human activity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ian Player</span> South African wildlife conservationist (1927 - 2014)

Ian Cedric Audley Player DMS was a South African international conservationist. Ian Player is one of the world’s outstanding conservationists and environmental statesmen. He earned his stripes in the rough and tumble era during which Africa’s protected areas were being created and tested. With his team, he also pioneered the saving of endangered species when they saved the white rhino from extinction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Wilderness Society (United States)</span> American non-profit land conservation organization

The Wilderness Society is an American non-profit land conservation organization that is dedicated to protecting natural areas and federal public lands in the United States. They advocate for the designation of federal wilderness areas and other protective designations, such as for national monuments. They support balanced uses of public lands, and advocate for federal politicians to enact various land conservation and balanced land use proposals. The Wilderness Society also engages in a number of ancillary activities, including education and outreach, and hosts one of the most valuable collections of Ansel Adams photographs at their headquarters in Washington, D.C.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary</span> Place

Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary, is an island sanctuary in Uganda, dedicated to the care of orphaned eastern chimpanzees, that have been rescued by the Uganda Wildlife Authority. Many of the chimpanzees were rescued from poachers and are unlikely to survive reintroduction to the wild.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cristina Mittermeier</span> Mexican photographer

Cristina Goettsch Mittermeier is a Mexican photographer, conservationist, biologist, and author.

Maderas del Carmen is a biosphere reserve in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila.

Defying Ocean's End (DOE) is a global agenda for action in marine conservation compiled in a 2004 Island Press book. It is also the title of a 2003 Los Cabos (Mexico) conference, where the agenda was formulated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harvey Locke</span> Canadian conservationist

Harvey Locke is a Canadian conservationist, writer, and photographer. He is a recognized global leader in the field of parks, wilderness, wildlife and large landscape conservation. He is a founder of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, with the goal to create a continuous corridor for wildlife from Yellowstone National Park in the United States to the Yukon in Northern Canada. In 2017, Locke was appointed chair of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas Beyond the Aichi Targets Task Force, with the goal of ensuring the new global conservation targets set at the next Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2020 are meaningful for achieving the conservation of nature and halting of biodiversity loss.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conservation photography</span> Photography genre

Conservation photography is the active use of the photographic process and its products, within the parameters of photojournalism, to advocate for conservation outcomes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Conservation Caucus Foundation</span> Non-partisan 501(c)(3) educational foundation

The International Conservation Caucus Foundation (ICCF) is a non-partisan 501(c)(3) educational foundation based in Washington, D.C. ICCF's stated mission is "to advance U.S. leadership in international conservation through public and private partnerships and to develop the next generation of conservation leaders in the U.S. Congress."

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sierra del Carmen</span>

The Sierra del Carmen, also called the Sierra Maderas del Carmen, is a northern finger of the Sierra Madre Oriental in the state of Coahuila, Mexico. The Sierra begins at the Rio Grande at Big Bend National Park and extends southeast for about 72 kilometres (45 mi), reaching a maximum elevation of 2,720 metres (8,920 ft). Part of the Sierra del Carmen is protected in the Maderas del Carmen Biosphere Reserve as part of a bi-national effort to conserve a large portion of the Chihuahua Desert in Mexico and Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vance Martin</span> American conservationist

Vance G. Martin is an expert in international nature conservation and wilderness protection, and a writer. Martin specializes in bridging the interests of people and nature through culture, communications, science, and policy. He has worked and lived in many countries, 75 or more, and served on the boards of numerous conservation and business organizations. He founded, and from 1984 through 2022, served as President of the WILD Foundation, an international conservation organization explicitly dedicated to protecting wilderness, connecting wild nature to people, and to communicating the values of wilderness and its benefits for human communities. He currently works through Wilderness Foundation Global, an international alliance based in the Global South that he co-founded in 2016. He is based in Boulder, Colorado (USA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">White Oak Conservation</span> Wildlife and conservation center outside Yulee, Florida, US

White Oak Conservation, which is part of Walter Conservation, is a 17,000-acre (6,900 ha) conservation center in northeastern Florida. It has long been dedicated to the conservation and care of endangered and threatened species, including rhinoceros, okapi, bongo antelope, zebras, dama gazelles, and cheetahs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carr Clifton</span>

Carr Clifton is a local American landscape, nature and wilderness photographer. A native Californian living in the northern Sierra Nevada near Taylorsville, California, Carr began photographing and color printing professionally in 1979 after seeking advice and inspiration from his mentor and neighbor, pioneering 20th century master landscape and conservation photographer Philip Hyde. Credits include a US Postal Service stamp of Acadia National Park and numerous exhibit format books. Clifton has spent thirty-five years exploring and documenting endangered, wild landscapes, creating an immense body of work with a large format 4x5 film camera, and more recently a digital camera.

The Janos Biosphere Reserve is a nature reserve in Janos, Chihuahua, Mexico. It protects a prairie ecosystem best known for its recovering and reintroduced species most notably the herd of American bison which became the first re-established in Mexico. It is the first federally protected area of Mexico with the main objective of protecting a grassland ecosystem.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mexico–United States international park</span>

The Mexico-United States international park, also known as El Carmen Big Bend Complex, is a proposed transboundary protected area straddling the part of the U.S.–Mexico boundary delineated by the Rio Grande. Proposed by U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Mexican President Manuel Ávila Camacho in 1944, the goal remains unfulfilled. The proposed bi-national park is along a 268 mile stretch of the river, which is approximately 14% of the border between Mexico and the United States. It consists of 3 protected areas and parks in Texas and 4 in Mexico, which include Big Bend National Park, the Maderas del Carmen, Ocampo, and Cañón de Santa Elena flora and fauna protection areas, Monumento Río Bravo del Norte, Big Bend Ranch State Park, and Black Gap Management Wildlife Area. As it is a region of protected areas and parks, the El Carmen Big Bend Complex area is the habitat for many types of birds, mammals, plants, and insects. Due to this, the area is a prime spot for ecotourism for both the United States and Mexico along the border. Recent issues of increased border security and environmental concerns have emphasized the need for reopening the discussion, which is currently led by organizations such as the National Park Service in Big Bend National Park, the Sierra Club, and Rotary International.

References