Annual Review 2012 - (Page 10)

Overview CAMPAIGNING At our 2011 annual conference, we agreed to run an annual global conservation campaign. Executive Director for Conservation Lasse Gustavsson explains why © WWF-Canon / Richard Stonehouse Why has WWF decided to start running global conservation campaigns? The Living Planet Report shows that most environmental trends are still going in the wrong direction. As the world’s leading conservation organization, we must address this. Our conservation programmes do impressive work on a day-to-day basis. But sometimes we need to escalate our efforts. That’s where campaigns come in. How would you define campaigning? Lasse Gustavsson Executive Director for Conservation WWF International Campaigning is about mobilizing a critical constituency to force or empower a decision-maker to make a decision they wouldn’t have taken otherwise. A successful campaign changes the rules of the game – you do something you wouldn’t normally do to achieve something extraordinary, because there’s a threat or an opportunity that wasn’t there before. The campaign launched this year is against illegal wildlife trade. Why was this chosen? Illegal trade is a critical issue for species, and for society. We’ve seen a 4,000 per cent increase in poaching levels of rhinos in South Africa recently, and 2011 saw the largest ivory seizures since records began. This tells us that programmes which were effective in the past are no longer enough. Clearly something needs to change and change dramatically. Our campaign will push illegal wildlife trade up the political agenda so real action happens. What issues will WWF be campaigning on in the future? Our next campaign will be on renewable energy. The next five years are critical for energy investment – we aim to shift investment away from old and dirty technologies into sustainable energy. That will be followed by an oceans campaign. We’ll also use our global voice to speak out on specific issues – as we’re doing at the moment against plans to drill for oil in Virunga, the oldest national park in Africa. I think the eagerness for campaigning within the network has helped to drive that campaign. In the long term, what do you hope WWF campaigns will achieve? I hope our use of campaigning will make us a more effective conservation organization. Our challenges are huge and it will take something extraordinary to create a future where people live in harmony with nature. This will require the active engagement of hundreds of millions of people. We already communicate with vast numbers of people all over the world, and digital and social media provide a fantastic opportunity to expand on this. We also have an unparalleled network of scientific and practical knowledge. If we can put those together – if we get hundreds of millions of people behind solutions that work – we’ll see conservation impact on an unprecedented scale. WWF-INT Annual Review 2012 page 10

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Annual Review 2012

Annual Review 2012
Contents
Foreword from Yolanda Kakabadse
A message from Jim Leape
Campaigning
Kill the trade
Saving special places
Harmony with nature
Public sector partnerships
Corporate partnerships
Our donors
WWF International accounts 2012
WWF International directors
WWF International board of trustees 2012
The WWF Network

Annual Review 2012