November 2010
Last January I had the great privilege of diving in Raja Ampat, located off the northwestern tip of Papua (the largest province of Indonesia) in what is described by many as the global epicenter of coral diversity. After seeing the most stunning gardens of hard and soft corals—staghorn, pillar, organ pipe and more—in every color imaginable, as well as vast schools of reef fish ranging from barracuda to parrotfish to wobbegong sharks, I came up for air, crawled up the side of our dive boat and sat down with local partners and local leaders to talk.
They asked for help. I asked what they needed, and fully expected the answer to be: "send money." But instead I heard this: "We need help with China and the U.S. Your levels of consumption are pulling fish out of our waters and trees from our lands and, unaltered, will ultimately shred everything we hold dear."
Almost everywhere I go, I hear the same thing. Traditional conservation remains important—working with local communities, creating parks and national laws. But increasingly, every place we care about is also buffeted by the winds of global trade and the impacts of meeting humanity's needs.
The ultimate measure of WWF's work is whether places like Raja Ampat persist, with the full complement of wondrous creatures they contain. But we will surely fail in our mission if we don't also lighten humanity's footprint. At WWF we do this by establishing standards for sustainable production, creating certification programs for the same, and working with a short list of progressive and influential companies to promote ways to meet the needs of people while using less energy, land and water.
This remains one of the fastest-growing parts of our work. We now have several hundred people across WWF—50 in the United States alone—who identify strategic points of leverage to change the way commodities are bought and sold. We work with some of the biggest companies in the world to advance this cause, leveraging our talent, our brand and the global reach of the WWF Network to drive measurable change in their behavior.
When WWF was created some 50 years ago, our basic business model was simple: global campaigns to raise resources to save species far, far away. Financial support remains fundamental to our work—but it must go hand in hand with commitments to change our behavior here at home if we are going to save those places we hold most dear.
- Carter S. Roberts
Last January I had the great privilege of diving in Raja Ampat, located off the northwestern tip of Papua (the largest province of Indonesia) in what is described by many as the global epicenter of coral diversity. After seeing the most stunning gardens of hard and soft corals—staghorn, pillar, organ pipe and more—in every color imaginable, as well as vast schools of reef fish ranging from barracuda to parrotfish to wobbegong sharks, I came up for air, crawled up the side of our dive boat and sat down with local partners and local leaders to talk.
They asked for help. I asked what they needed, and fully expected the answer to be: "send money." But instead I heard this: "We need help with China and the U.S. Your levels of consumption are pulling fish out of our waters and trees from our lands and, unaltered, will ultimately shred everything we hold dear."
Almost everywhere I go, I hear the same thing. Traditional conservation remains important—working with local communities, creating parks and national laws. But increasingly, every place we care about is also buffeted by the winds of global trade and the impacts of meeting humanity's needs.
The ultimate measure of WWF's work is whether places like Raja Ampat persist, with the full complement of wondrous creatures they contain. But we will surely fail in our mission if we don't also lighten humanity's footprint. At WWF we do this by establishing standards for sustainable production, creating certification programs for the same, and working with a short list of progressive and influential companies to promote ways to meet the needs of people while using less energy, land and water.
This remains one of the fastest-growing parts of our work. We now have several hundred people across WWF—50 in the United States alone—who identify strategic points of leverage to change the way commodities are bought and sold. We work with some of the biggest companies in the world to advance this cause, leveraging our talent, our brand and the global reach of the WWF Network to drive measurable change in their behavior.
When WWF was created some 50 years ago, our basic business model was simple: global campaigns to raise resources to save species far, far away. Financial support remains fundamental to our work—but it must go hand in hand with commitments to change our behavior here at home if we are going to save those places we hold most dear.
- Carter S. Roberts
