Conservation Influencers

Pro Wildlife

Munich, Germany

Pro Wildlife was founded in 1999 by biologists, veterinarians and others interested in nature and conservation issues. Its mission, according to its website, is to ‘improve the protection of wildlife and their habitats in Germany and around the globe’.

Pro Wildlife is active in both the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and CITES. It is also a member of the international Species Survival Network (SSN) and the Deutscher Naturschutzring (DNR).

Pro Wildlife works with sanctuaries and animal protection projects, which ‘rescue, return to health and protect species that suffer from or are threatened by poaching and wildlife trafficking’. For example in Zambia, where it partners with Game Rangers International to rescue and care for orphaned elephants. Pro Wildlife is also involved in projects that ‘protect wildlife habitats and which educate people in the ways and means to curb wildlife trafficking and poaching’.

More controversially, Pro Wildlife funds undercover investigations and raids against suspected animal smugglers. It is especially focused on and is hostile to the legal and illegal ivory trade. In its 2109 annual report, Pro Wildlife celebrated the fact that at CITES’ CoP-18 ‘all attempts to free up the trade in rhino horn and live rhinos experienced a gratifyingly clear defeat’. Pro Wildlife also opposes all commercial whaling and dolphinaria.

Leaders

Andrea Höppner, CEO

Governance

Small Board led by Andrea Höppner

Finances

According to its website, on December 31, 2019, Pro Wildlife had assets worth Euro 1,188,646.35.

About the directory

Conservation Influencers is a searchable directory of the animal activist, environmental and ecological lobby. It examines the history, mission, methodology and reputation of NGOs to assess their impact on the global conservation cause.

Featured

Franz Weber Foundation

From 1990 until 2015, Franz Weber Foundation (FFW) managed the Fazao-Malfakassa National Park in Togo, which was, according to an in-depth investigation by Duke University, ‘established by forcing the local communities off their land and without taking into consideration their point of view’. That same study cited convincing evidence from reports published in 1990, confirming that competition for land use was already ‘creating conflict between the local communities and park managers’. In 2015 Togo refused to renew FFW’s contract because, the report says, ‘local communities were still excluded from the management of the natural resources of their land’ and FFW had ‘failed to fulfil its contract’. Franz Weber Foundation plays a major role within CITES because it funds and manages from Switzerland the African Elephant Coalition (AEC), which represents 32 African range states, some of which have barely any elephants and others none at all. Contrary to the wishes of the range states in Southern Africa, which manage most of the world’s wild elephant populations, the AEC at CITES’ CoPs repeatedly tables proposals to put all of the world’s elephants in appendix I. And the AEC uses its voting power to keep in place prohibitions on ivory sales and all other trade in elephant-related derivatives, including skins and hair, which Southern African nations wish to legalise.

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