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World Wildlife Fund

by Prestyn Ramos from Burley, Idaho in United States

Prestyn Ramos

12, March 2019

World Wildlife Fund

While we go to school and work every day, animals are losing their lives and habitats. What are you going to do about it? Foundations bring awareness to things that get overlooked in school and everyday life. You do not hear anything about animals going extinct unless you look into it or you are on the Discovery Channel. The World Wildlife Fund contributes to animals that are in danger of going extinct, through protecting and restoring species and their habitats.

The World Wildlife Fund did not just start out of nowhere; there was a cry for help amongst other animal refugee foundations that were already fighting animal extinction and earth conservation. The World Wildlife Fund was founded in 1961 (World Wildlife Fund). During that time there were limited foundations working around the world on animal and earth conservation. In 1961, sixteen of the world’s leading conservationists signed the Morges Manifesto. The Morges Manifesto stated that, “While the expertise to protect the world environment existed, the financial support to achieve this protection did not” (World Wildlife Foundation). The other foundations did not have the assets they needed, so World Wildlife Fund started out as a fundraising organization. They would raise the money for projects that the other foundations would start (World Wildlife Foundation).

Currently World Wildlife Fund is its own organization, not only focused of saving animals but saving the world. Not all animals are going extinct, pigeons are perfectly fine as of numbers, but one animal that is close to going extinct is the Amur Leopard. On the World Wildlife Fund website there is animal adoption that all funds go toward saving the animal along with a list of the most endangered animals. World Wildlife Fund saves important places and species, because Earth alone has lost half of the mammal species within the past decade. People as a whole are taking animals' homes for housing and businesses. By saving these habitats they will increase the living space for the animals, therefore leading to the animal population increasing. WWF is able to save these animals and do experiments with their funding they get. Governments support WWF and fund them for certain projects. They also get 6% of their revenue from corporations, but the biggest support is from their memberships (Steinbach Alison W). The focus of World Wildlife Fund is to do more than save animals, they conserve the planet. They accomplish this by looking at global trend lines, the footprint index and looking at coastal weather patterns, as such tests tell the changes of climate change and pollution from past years.

World Wildlife Fund does not just do research, they do projects to help raise awareness and raise population of animals. They did a project called Tx2 to help raise tiger population. In 2010 tigers were one of the most endangered animals, if not the most endangered animal, there were only 3,200 left in forests and mountains in Asia (Lowe 4). One of the major threats to tigers were that they were getting killed by poachers. Poachers killed them for their fur because they used it for rugs and clothing. People in China believed that the tiger bones would cure disease, so the people would grind up the bones into powder and use it as medicine. One tiger can sell upwards of $70,000, for the fancy people that really want that real fur (Lowe 4). From 2000 through 2014 governments seized 1,600 tigers from poachers' hands (Lowe 5). Poachers are not the only factor causing these animals to lose their populations. Another factor is people destroying their habitat, for businesses and homes. Whether we like it or not, we as human beings are going to start over-populating areas of the world, unless we replace other areas with more opportunities for jobs and housing. As we start to build houses and businesses in tiger territory, we are reducing their living space and their food supply. When the tigers do not have any room to hunt, how can their prey have any room to repopulate and live their normal life? That is why in order to double the space the tigers had to roam and hunt, experts linked protected areas the tigers are already in to make bigger spaces for them. As a result of all this work the tiger population grew from 3,200 tigers to 3,900 tigers (Lowe 4).

By investing time and effort into animals and the Earth, we can live on this planet till the very end. We cannot help this planet without awareness towards this cause, and we can help just by recycling or even reusing water bottles. By restoring the habitats of animals in need, the World Wildlife Fund helps our earth as much as animals around us. One day think about donating to save an animal on their website to give the animal hope to survive.


Work Cited

“History.” WWF, World Wildlife Fund, www.worldwildlife.org/about/history.

Lowe, Lindsay. “Tigers Bounce Back. (Cover Story).” Scholastic News -- Edition 4, vol. 79, no. 4, Oct. 2016, p. 4. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=118458659&site=ehost-live.

“Our Work.” WWF, World Wildlife Fund, www.worldwildlife.org/initiatives.

Steinbach, Alison W. “The World Wildlife Fund: Innovative Private Sector Partnerships and the Road Ahead.” Harvard International Review, vol. 37, no. 4, Summer 2016, p. 61. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=119802564&site=ehost-live.

Page created on 5/21/2019 5:29:58 PM

Last edited 5/28/2019 6:32:31 PM

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