World Wide Fund for Nature

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WWF

Type of Company	Charity
Founded	September 11, 1961, Morges, Switzerland
Headquarters	Av. du Mont-Blanc 1196 Gland, Switzerland
Key people	Sir Julian Huxley Dr Claude Martin HE Chief Emeka Anyaoku
Industry	Environmentalism
Products	Lobbying, research, consultancy.
Revenue	$120,910,695 USD (2005)^[1]
Employees	approx. 4,500 (worldwide)
Slogan	n/a.
Website	www.panda.org

For other uses of "WWF", see WWF.

WWF – World Wide Fund for Nature (formerly the "World Wildlife Fund", which is still used by WWF-US and WWF-Canada) is a global environment conservation, research, environmental advocacy and restoration organization. WWF is dedicated to stopping the degradation of the planet's natural environment, and building a future in which humans live in harmony with nature, by:

conserving the world's biological diversity
ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable
promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption.

Currently WWF works on the conservation of three biomes: Forests, Freshwater Ecosystems, and Oceans and Coasts. These conservation works contain the bulk of the world's biodiversity, and provide the environmental goods and services upon which all life ultimately depends.

WWF promotes a factual, science-based approach to conservation, which focuses on six priority issues of global concern: forests, oceans and coasts, fresh water, endangered species, and the insidious threats of toxic chemicals and climate change. For each of these issues, WWF has developed measurable targets, and runs more than 1,200 field projects around the world in any given year.

1 Founding
2 Presidents
3 International directors
4 Acronym dispute
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Founding

11 September 1961, Morges, Switzerland, under the name World Wildlife Fund.
In 1986, WWF realized that its old name no longer reflected the scope of its activities. The name was changed into World Wide Fund for Nature, retaining the WWF initials. The United States and Canada, however, retained the full old name, World Wildlife Fund for Animals ^[2].

	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 ^[2]

[edit] Presidents

WWF logos 1961-2000.

1962–1976: HRH Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands
1976–1981: John H Loudon
1981–1996: HRH The Duke of Edinburgh
1996–1999: Syed Babar Ali
2000–2000: Ruud Lubbers
2000–2001: The Hon. Mrs Sara Morrison
2001–Present: HE Chief Emeka Anyaoku

[edit] International directors

WWF Services

James P Leape – Director General
Paul Steele – Chief Operating Officer
Thomas Schultz-Jagow – Communications
Dr Timothy Geer – Government & Aid Agency Coordination
Chiew Chong – Finance & Administration

International Conservation Programme

Dr Guillermo Castilleja – Programme Director
Dr Sheila O'Connor – Programme Audits

Regional Programmes

Dr Yaa Ntiamoa-Baidu – Africa/Madagascar
Dr Isabelle Louis – Asia/Pacific
Dr Magnus Sylvén – Europe/Middle East
Dr Georg Schwede – Eastern Europe/Central Asia
Dr Meg Symington – Latin America/Caribbean

Policy

Gordon Shepherd – International Policy

Global Issues

Hans Verolme – Climate Change Programme
Duncan Pollard – Forests for Life Programme
Jamie Pittock – Freshwater Programme
Dr Simon Cripps – Oceans & Coasts Programme
Dr Sue Lieberman – Species Programme

Legal Advisor

Michael R. Rogers, Barrister

[edit] Acronym dispute

In 2000, the World Wide Fund for Nature sued the World Wrestling Federation (now known as World Wrestling Entertainment) for unfair trade practices. Both companies shared the acronym "WWF". The environmental organization claimed that the wrestling company had violated a 1994 agreement regarding use of the WWF initials ^[3].

On August 10, 2001, a British court ruled in favour of the conservation organization. The World Wrestling Federation filed an appeal in October 2001. But on May 5, 2002, the World Wrestling Federation changed its website URL from wwf.com to wwe.com, and used an automatic editing override to replace every "WWF" reference on the existing site with "WWE," as a prelude to changing the company's name to "World Wrestling Entertainment".

Abandonment of the acronym did not end the two organizations' legal conflict. Later in 2002, the Wildlife Fund petitioned the court for $360 million in damages. An out-of-court settlement was reached, for an undisclosed amount. In 2003, World Wrestling Entertainment won a limited decision which permitted them to continue marketing certain preexisting products with the abandoned WWF logo. However, the wrestling company was obliged to issue newly-branded merchandise such as apparel, action figures, video games, and DVDs with the "WWE" acronym. For example, the wrestling company has invested time and expense blocking out references to the "WWF" on its decades-long backlog of video footage, to abide by the court order.

In November 2006, the World Wildlife Fund's attempt to secure the rights for the wwf.com domain, which was purchased in 2003, was rejected by the World Intellectual Property Organization.