WWF International: History

”We shan´t save all we should like to, but we shall save a great deal more than if we had never tried.” - Sir Peter Scott, one of the founders of WWF

WWF was founded in 1961. The world today is a much more dangerous place for wildlife than when WWF began its work four decades ago. More and more species are facing extinction. Almost half of the planet´s forests have been destroyed in the last 100 years – and the rate is increasing. Overfishing continues to exploit the world´s oceans. And climate change is threatening the whole planet.

Despite the myriad challenges, WWF has chalked up some impressive conservation achievements with the help of some five million supporters and a wide global network. Over 330 protected areas around the world and numerous conservation treaties exist today thanks to the organization´s work. During the past four decades, WWF´s original mission has become increasingly topical.

How it all began

WWF´s saga began in 1960, when eminent British biologist Sir Julian Huxley visited Africa to research a series of articles for The Observer newspaper. He discovered that many parts of Africa, which 50 years before were swarming with game, had become bare of wildlife.

The articles prompted businessman Victor Stolan to write to Julian Huxley, suggesting an international organization to raise funds for conservation of African nature. Many others had also been alerted to the problem. Among these nature lovers were British ornithologist Peter Scott, who was later to become the organization´s first chairman, and Guy Mountfort, director of a large advertising company.

Around Easter 1961 three gentlemen – Scott, Mountfort and Max Nicholson, Director General of Britain´s Nature Conservancy – gathered together to discuss the founding of "Nature´s Red Cross". A scientific research-based conservation institution known as IUCN –The World Conservation Union, had been established twenty years earlier in Switzerland, but it was troubled by lack of funds. Scott, Mountfort and Nicholson suggested that an organization committed to raising funds for conservation projects of global importance should now be established. A group of scientists and advertising and public relations experts committed to this cause met for the first time in London in May 1961. They decided to call the newborn organization World Wildlife Fund.

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. Sir Peter Scott designed WWF´s famous logo from the basis of sketches done by naturalist Gerald Watterson.

So, just a few months later, in September 1961 the first WWF office was established in the small town of Morges, Switzerland.

In its first three years, WWF raised and donated almost two million dollars to conservation projects. Much of this money was given by individuals, moved by newspaper articles. For the first time, many in the western world were alerted to plummeting wildlife populations.

Some of the early grants, such as those to IUCN and the Charles Darwin Foundation in the Galápagos Islands, were large. WWF still funds projects in the Galápagos, and has helped establish the Galápagos National Park. One of WWF´s first projects was to purchase 6 668 hectares of the Guadalquiver wetlands in southern Spain to help create the Doñana National Park. Many early grants, however, were more modest: one of them went to provide a road grader and rotary mower for Kenya´s Masai Mara Game Reserve.

The Seventies

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.

Rain forest in Malaysia © Mauri Rautkari/Ekokuva Oy

The 1970´s were an exciting and active time. 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 launch of WWF´s marine campaign "The Seas Must Live" in 1976 enabled the organization to set up sanctuaries for whales, dolphins and seals, and to protect marine turtle nesting sites.

Other memorable projects of the 1970´s included Operation Tiger, launched in 1972, which resulted in several sanctuaries for the critically endangered tiger in India, and later on in the decade "Save the Rhino", a campaign which rapidly raised over US$1 million to combat rhino poaching.

In the early seventies, WWF contributed to the establishment of CITES, whose mandate is to ensure through international cooperation that the international trade in wild species does not threaten their long-term survival. To boost the effectiveness of CITES, WWF and IUCN created TRAFFIC, a body which monitors trade in wildlife and wildlife products. In the year 2000 alone, TRAFFIC exposed cases of illegal trade in wildlife worth billions of dollars.

The Eighties

By the early 1980´s WWF had gained its millionth supporter. 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 1980´s by collaborating with IUCN and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on the publication of a joint World Conservation Strategy. The Strategy was launched simultaneously in 34 world capitals, and it provided recommendations for national conservation strategies for the world´s nations. It recommended a holistic approach to conservation and emphasized the importance of improving the lives of the millions of people who live in poverty in connection to environmental conservation.

In the early 1980´s, WWF pioneered the innovative debt-for-nature swaps – the buying of foriegn currency debt at a substantial discount and using the proceeds to fund conservation projects in the debtor country. Swaps have been made for the benefit of local conservation projects e.g. in Madagascar, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Ecuador, Zambia and the Philippines.

By 1986, WWF had come to realize that its name, World Wildlife Fund, no longer reflected the scope of its activities. The name was changed into World Wide Fund For Nature. The United States and Canada, however, retained the old name.

The Nineties

The 1990´s began with the launch of a revised mission and strategy. The expanded mission reiterated WWF´s commitment to nature conservation, and classified the organization´s work into three independent categories: the preservation of biological diversity, promoting the concept of sustainable use of resources, and reducing wasteful consumption and pollution.

In 1992 WWF 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.

WWF pioneered the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in 1993 to oversee the independent certification of wood and wood products that come from well-managed forests. To date more than 20 million hectares of forest have been certified under the FSC certification. Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) was created in 1996 to promote sustainable fishing.

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

Combatting climate change became an important part of WWF´s work. In 1997, WWF acted as a key force in the creation and subsequent improvement of the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to curb global warming. Since then, WWF has worked to attempt to ensure both the environmental integrity of the protocol and its ratification.

WWF started publishing its Living Planet Report in 1998 in order to quantify how fast we are losing our precious natural resources. The report, now released biennially, is based on the Living Planet Index, which monitors the changes in populations of animal species in forest, marine and freshwater ecosysytems. The Living Planet Report found that in just 30 years, the world has lost a third of its natural wealth. The report also examines consumption of critical resources in countries around the world, using the concept of "ecological footprint". Ecological footprint is a measure to estimate the use of natural resources by mankind in relation to nature´s capacity to regenerate.

2000 and Beyond

In order to spearhead its mission and maximize the impact of its resources, WWF has chosen a set of global priorities for its work. These priorities cover six globally important issues. Together with forests, freshwater ecosystems, and oceans and coasts, these global Target Driven Programmes include climate change, toxic chemicals and a number of selected species of special concern.

WWF has also identified a network of Global 200 ecoregions, the priority places where WWF will apply its effort and support. The Global 200 identifies the richest, rarest and most distinctive examples of all the Earth´s diverse natural habitats. It is based on the pronciple that only by conserving representative examples of all the world´s ecosystems can we protect the broadest array of species and maintain the complex ecological and evolutionary processes that make up the web of life.

In 40 years, WWF has not only grown in size and stature. Its focus has also evolved from its localized efforts in favour of single species to new horizons encompassing global scales of complexity.

"Our objectives have never been clearer – slow climate change, reduce toxics in the environment, protect our oceans and fresh waters, stop deforestation, and save species, " says Dr Claude Martin, Director General of WWF International. "Our great achievement over the past 40 years is spreading the message – through us people know that nature counts."

WWF continues its fight for a better world by campaigning and lobbying, as well as working in the field. Much has been achieved in the last 40 years. Without our supporters it would never have been possible. Will you join them?

Links

• WWF International: more about history
• WWF International: Celebrating 40 years of Conservation