WWF operates in around 90 countries worldwide and has several hundred thousand members and supporters in the UK alone. Natalie Hoare talks to
him about the organisation’s latest campaigns, which demonstrate its commitment not just to conserving endangered species, but also to combating the wider
issue of global climate change

You joined WWF in May, what exactly is your role?
I’m the chief executive of WWF UK, which is the UK-based member of the WWF worldwide network, so I’m responsible for all of our operations in the UK. Of course, a lot of the money that we raise in the UK is spent overseas (roughly two thirds of our conservation spend is overseas), so I’m responsible for ensuring that the way in which we invest that money realises good returns against our mission. I’m responsible to the board of trustees for delivering our strategy and making an executive contribution to building a future where people live in harmony with the natural world. It may sound worthy, but it’s also slightly daunting because it’s a very big challenge.

A lot of people think WWF is restricted to animal conservation, but that isn’t the case is it?
No, it isn’t. Even when WWF was founded back in the early 1960s, the original founders were very clear that you needed to look much more widely than simply trying to stop people killing a particular animal. That’s only a part of what we do – anti-poaching for example – but if you want to build a sustainable future, it means thinking about how people are going to live, how animals are going to behave and how it all interacts. Sure, our work looks at animals, but it also looks much more widely at the bigger picture in which these animals live. The flagship species that we all love and admire, such as tigers, pandas or orang-utans, are just the tip of the iceberg – it’s the work that people see, following a great deal of wider work with governments, business and communities to build a good future for those animals and everybody else.

How does WWF strike the balance between safeguarding people’s livelihoods while also protecting endangered species?
Our mission is about building a future where people live in harmony with the natural world, so for us, that issue is exactly at the heart of what we’re about. We’re trying to find ways in which people can live that don’t have too many adverse impacts on the environment. There are two aspects to finding a balance. One is to provide funding and support to our overseas projects – for example, we’ve supported fishermen to get different kinds of nets that aren’t so destructive to young fish and the sea bed when they go fishing, enabling them to continue to make a good livelihood. In fact, we’ve even advised them on things they can do in addition to fishing to increase their incomes, while also conserving the environment. The second area we aim to work on is how we all live in the UK, because the way that we and other people in developed countries live is a key issue. If everybody lived as we do in the UK, we would need three planets to support that lifestyle, but we only have one planet, so we have a campaign called One Planet Living, which promotes lifestyle choices that take into account the fact that our resources are limited.

What has WWF accomplished since it started in the 1960s?
I think WWF has contributed enormously to the fact that we’re now much more conscious of the need to conserve our world. There are also parts of the world – such as the marine park off the coast of Tanzania that I visited a couple of weeks ago and natural habitats in Nepal in which rhinoceros live – where WWF has worked with local governments and communities to create environments where species don’t just survive, but flourish in a way that’s positive for local people. More recently, we’re starting to help people understand that everything’s interconnected – how we live has an impact on the world – and I think climate change has brought that home to all of us in a very obvious way.

What are the big campaigns that WWF is working on right now?
The UK government is going to bring in a climate change bill and we’re very concerned that it needs to have a rigorous target of 80 per cent reductions by 2050. At the moment, the government’s target is 60 per cent, but that’s probably based on out-of-date science now – the latest findings suggest that it needs to be more like 80 per cent. And that’s all very well by 2050, but we need to have some annual milestones that we’re heading towards to get there. We also want to make sure that our approach to carbon busting includes flying and shipping from the outset because they’re an important part of carbon dioxide emissions. And we’re a bit worried that emissions trading could become regarded as the answer to everything, so we have to guard against too much high carbon investment in the UK. Another important area is homes, because about 22 per cent of our environmental footprint and carbon emissions come from our housing. We’re supporting energy performance certificates so you can rate your home on how energy efficient it is. And then we’re looking at ways to encourage retro-fitting of existing housing stock to make it more energy efficient and also what’s called micro-generation – solar and very small wind turbines – that could reduce our reliance on huge power stations. The issue of climate change is something that WWF has been working on for a long time, but there’s still a huge amount for us to do.

For further information, visit www.wwf.org.uk or www.panda.org

October 2007