Conservation Influencers

WildAid

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 private sector, to create, what it calls, ‘the world’s most effective and well-enforced marine protected areas (MPA)’.

WildAid claims that it is primarily concerned with raising awareness and empowering the public. But what it really believes in is the power of high-end advertising techniques, nudge theory and other behavioural sciences to persuade people to make the ‘right’ moral choices, mostly without them realising that they’ve been manipulated. In other words, WildAid is paternalistic and believes that compared to its target audience it is morally superior.

WildAid’s annual report tells how it works closely with China Customs, producing Public Service Announcements and running billboard campaigns, which are meant to alter human behaviour. For example, one of WildAid’s recent high-profile campaigns featured the Chinese celebrity Huang Xuan warning the public about the illegality of buying ivory-based products abroad and bringing them back home. WildAid also campaigns to persuade East Asian people to #EndTheTrade of all wildlife products, and to ‘Celebrate special occasions with #NoSharkFins,’ especially in soup.

According to WildAid’s website, it has ‘an unrivalled portfolio of celebrity ambassadors and a global network of media partners’. WildAid says that it ‘leverages more than $308 million in annual pro-bono media support’.

In 2019, WildAid produced a three-part documentary series, Between the Sea and Shore, starring the Taiwanese-Canadian actor Eddie Peng. This highlighted the plight of sea turtles sold in local markets, as well the impact of tourism, plastic and overfishing.

WildAid promotes a ‘six-step Marine Protection Program’ known as its ‘Blueprint for MPA Success’, which it tailors for local partners. For example in the Galapagos Islands, Coastal Ecuador, Palau, and Gabon’s coastal MPA network. In its words, the ‘overall ambition of the blueprint is to stop illegal fishing, enforce regulations, allow wildlife recovery, and encourage positive economic opportunity for communities’.

According to its 2019 annual report, WildAid partnered with the National Public Security/Police Ministry’s television network (ANTV) in Vietnam to ‘produce an eight-episode series of programs on wildlife laws, trade, and crime, including coverage of the rhino horn and ivory trades’.

Leader

Peter Knights, CEO

Governance

Board of Directors, chaired by Robbin Ferracone

Finance

According to its annual report, in 2019 its total direct expenses were USD10,970,629, of which USD6,672,306 was spent on wildlife campaigns, USD1,762,189 on marine protection and USD1,029,716 on climate change.

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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