-2003 Annual Report-
THE PHILOSOPHY BEHIND THE MISSION
The Fund for Wild Nature believes that healthy ecosystems
are too essential to be sacrificed. Increasingly
rare, wild areas constitute the main reservoirs
of biodiversity. They also provide key spiritual
and scientific reference points for understanding
the planet's wondrous cycles of birth, life, death,
and decay.
The
Board's ideology is rooted in biocentrism and
the belief that the human experience has become
increasingly distressed because society has disconnected
from Nature, and has attempted to control natural
systems for short-sighted consumption. We may
perceive comfort and convenience, but the waste
we leave degrades our quality of life, and inflicts
a great deal of suffering on the other life with
which we share the Earth. When we realize our
kinship with these other life forms, we re-discover
our natural, wilder selves.
By
renouncing unlimited growth and the requisite
domination of Nature, we shed the apathy and disempowerment
induced by a corporate-dominated culture. This
will ultimately enrich our lives because these
ideas are grounded in our bedrock social and emotional
needs dating to our species' origin.
FROM THE BOARD
The Fund for Wild Nature finds and helps ambitious
groups that have practical and creative solutions
to today's worst environmental problems.
Nothing
short of thinking big will save what's left of
the natural order. That order is now breaking
down into chaos as habitats disappear, and the
animals and plants that are themselves crucial
to other species disappear with them; like water
going down a drain.
However,
addressing the ecological emergency can only be
done in small steps. Therefore, the Fund's challenge
is to identify groups that can bridge the gap
between the needs of Nature and society, and hopefully
make a difference before it's too late.
The
Great Plains Restoration Council is one such group.
The Fund for Wild Nature gave the Great Plains
Restoration Council its first grant in 1998 and
continues to support this small, vibrant organization.
Their current focus is building a popular base
among members of the Sioux nation of the Dakotas,
and in the inner city of Fort Worth, Texas. Their
ultimate goal is to restore a once-enormous ecosystem
whose inhabitants, from swift fox to ferruginous
hawk to wild buffalo, are in decline. To achieve
this, the group connects cultures from the Northern
to the Southern Plains that have both been marginalized
in the corporate search for groundwater, cheap
farmland, and oil.
A
society built on extracting groundwater and fossil
fuels demonstrates a pathological agnosticism
toward its own future. A vision for a very different
future must come about through cultural change.
The Rosebud and Pine Ridge communities, as autonomous
nations, have great potential to set aside land
for ecological restoration. And Texas, which can
be viewed as the epicenter of empire, may be just
a few election cycles from a demographic shift
that will -- unlikely as it sounds -- put Democrats
back in control. Imagine what might be possible
if urban minority communities in Fort Worth and
elsewhere stand up for an ecological prairie preserve.
Imagine the power of their commitment to this
vision after years of helping their friends in
the Sioux nation create such a landscape up north.
In
addition to funding groups that advocate change
through social awareness, we also finance groups
that directly push the levers of power. The Flagstaff
Activist Network is building a network of Arizona
citizens seeking ecological representation on
Arizona's Game and Fish Commission, the state's
policy setting body for wildlife. Appointment
to the Commission has often been a reward for
campaign contributions by powerful ranchers and
real estate developers. But an outcry over the
state's plan to kill all mountain lions in a large
region of the national forest near Tucson, ostensibly
to reduce risk to hikers, has made people question
who makes these decisions. The Fund helped pay
for the Flagstaff Activist Network's conference
of activists and scientists determined to protect
predators by pushing for more scientists on this
state board -- a battle that they are winning.
No
policy change happens in a vacuum. Behind every
news event is someone who makes it happen. The
Fund for Wild Nature, with the financial support
of our donors, finds and nourishes groups with
the vision and practical knowledge to truly change
this world for the better.
2003 GRANTEES
2003 WILD NATURE AWARD
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