Campaigns aim to protect seas and fight poverty
WWF International is launching two new campaigns: to help relieve poverty and to lobby for greater protection for the seas.
The campaigns are based on WWF's guiding principle for conservation - humans living in harmony with nature.
The seas are home to an amazing variety of animals such as whales, dolphins, tur tles, seals and sea horses; and coral reefs rich in biodiversity. However, all is not well in the delicate marine environment.
Decades of mismanagement have led to unprecedented pressures on our marine wild life.
WWF International started its Ocean Recovery Campaign last summer to draw attention to the many threats to marine wildlife and will lobby for in creased protection.
The fact is that both the fishing industry and conservation ists share the same vision - a healthy marine environment where fishing can be carried out in a sustainable way.
Poverty is a root cause of the conservation crisis. It has long been WWF's view that poverty and the environment are inex tricably linked - we believed that it is impossible to elimi nate poverty without protecting the environment and vice- versa. The challenge that the world faces is to manage the en vironment in a way so that we can conserve our resources and also improve the poor's stan dard of living.
In the next 12 months, WWF's People and Planet cam paign will press home the point that a healthy environment is vital if the world's poorest peo ple are to be helped and global poverty reduced. Conservation is as much about people as it is about nature.
Graphic: NATUREGLO
