Category: Conservation Influencers

According to its 2019 annual report, Friends off the Earth believes that the ‘financialisation of nature’ and ‘market-led mechanisms’ are detrimental to their causes (page 19). FoE pointedly refuses to accept that these two concepts could ever be efficacious. This means that it does not support the sustainable use of natural resources, which depends upon making the conservation of wildlife financially viable.

The Earth Island Institute’s (EII) dolphin-safe eco-‘trust’ label scheme relies on self-certification that demands no proof to confirm how few dolphins tuna fishing vessels claim that they kill or injure. This was a fact that the documentary Seaspiracy usefully exposed, regardless of its motive, which was to persuade people to go vegan, when it filmed EII’s spokesperson Mark Palmer admitting the truth. Namely that EII’s so-called eco-trust-label, which earns the NGO millions of dollars, does not guarantee ‘dolphin-safe’ tuna, even though its ‘seal of approval’ says it does on almost every can of tuna sold in the USA.

Sri Lanka Co-founded by Nishan Perera and Daniel Fernando, Blue Resources Trust (BRT) is a marine research and consultancy organisation based in Sri Lanka. Perera is a marine biologist and photographer. Fernando is a member of Sri Lanka’s official delegations to CITES and the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals.  Blue… Continue reading Blue Resources Trust

USA WildAid was founded in 2000 by Peter Knights, a former investigator with the Environmental Investigation Agency, with the novel tagline ‘when the buying stops, the killing can too’. WildAid’s mission is to stop the illegal trade in wildlife by reducing consumer demand for wildlife products. It also works with governments, non-governmental organizations, and the… Continue reading WildAid

USA The Sierra Club was founded in 1892 by John Muir, a racist supporter of eugenics and forced-sterilization laws, to help people enjoy and protect the wilderness in the USA. Among Sierra Club’s other early leaders were Joseph LeConte and David Starr Jordan, both of whom believed in white supremacy.   In 1969, building on its founders’ extremist… Continue reading Sierra Club

The Netherlands (Don’t Make a Wave Committee) Canada According to Greenpeace, the Don’t Make a Wave Committee was formed in 1970. But this story of radical direct action really began a year later. On the 15th of September 1971, activists from the newly formed body set sail from Vancouver, Canada, in the 25-metre Phyllis-Cormack, which… Continue reading Greenpeace

USA & UK, global The eponymous Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) was founded in 1977 to protect chimps and their habitats. Today, JGI claims to have a presence in more than 30 countries and to employ more than 300 people.  Since its foundation JGI has pursued animal rights and related environmental and educational causes. But its… Continue reading Jane Goodall Institute

[EXERPT SAMPLE] The Massachusetts Audubon Society dates back to 1896, when it was founded to protect waterbirds. Within a few years, similar Audubon Societies were established across the breadth of the United States of America. And in 1905, the different groups formed a national organization known as the National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals (National Audubon Society since 1940). Though, to this day, its network of local chapters operates largely autonomously.

Gland, Switzerland The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) was founded in 1961 by IUCN, supported by naturalists and conservationists linked to The Society for the Preservation of Fauna in the Empire and British Nature Conservancy. Its stated mission is to ‘conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on Earth’. … Continue reading World Wide Fund for Nature

Cambridge, UK TRAFFIC International (TRAFFIC) was established in 1976 by WWF and IUCN. Its mission is to ‘ensure that the trade in wild plants and animals does not pose a threat to the conservation of nature’. TRAFFIC was designed to support CITES’ regulations by providing, in James Compton’s words, ‘impartial analysis of wildlife trade issues’… Continue reading Traffic international – the wildlife monitoring network