WILD Foundation

Description

The WILD Foundation is a global conservation organisation that brings people together across cultures to protect wilderness.

It works by convening networks, supporting partners and building trust among governments, communities and institutions, on the view that lasting conservation requires cooperation across borders rather than top-down control. It has run field conservation projects in dozens of countries and helped found other conservation groups, including the Cheetah Conservation Fund. It also publishes the International Journal of Wilderness.

A flagship program is the World Wilderness Congress, an environmental forum it established in 1977 that has convened on five continents. Through this platform it launched Nature Needs Half, an initiative calling for roughly half of the planet’s land and water to be protected for wilderness. It is a founding member of Wilderness Foundation Global, a consortium of independent conservation organisations working worldwide.

WILD was founded in 1974 by South African game ranger Ian Player and his mentor Magqubu Ntombela, growing out of earlier work saving the white rhinoceros from extinction and running the Wilderness Leadership School. It is a 501(c)(3) organisation based in Boulder, Colorado.