United for Wildlife (UfW) is an unprecedented collaboration between seven of the largest international conservation organisations, brought together by HRH The Duke of Cambridge and supported by the Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry.
The Royals hope that the partnership will draw attention to the rapid escalation of the illegal wildlife trade, which is having a devastating effect on species worldwide. UfW will focus on four of the world’s most endangered animal species; rhinos, elephants, big cats and pangolins.
UfW is a long-term commitment to tackle the global threats facing species. UfW aims to implement a global action plan for organisations and government partners to work collaboratively to end wildlife crime. It also aims to bring new funding to help organisations reduce the trade and the slaughter of wildlife.
Save the Rhino’s Deputy Director Susie Offord comments:
The illegal wildlife trade is a global problem and so Save the Rhino welcomes the United for Wildlife initiative, which we hope will bring collaborative action amongst conservation partners and international governments, along with increased funding to tackle this worldwide problem. It is great to see the UK royals taking a lead in raising awareness for the world’s critically endangered species before it’s too late.
On February 12 – 13, the Zoological Society of London hosted the first UfW event; a two day symposium on International Wildlife Trafficking, which saw experts gather ahead of the London Conference on Illegal Wildlife Trade. Click here to read more about the event.
The seven large conservation organisations involved in the initiative are Conservation International, Fauna & Flora International, International Union for Conservation of Nature, The Nature Conservancy, Wildlife Conservation Society, WWF-UK, the Zoological Society of London. UfW also aims to work with a large range of governments and other NGOs.
Click here to read more about United for Wildlife
If I look at their website http://www.unitedforwildlife.org the first thing that strikes me are their partner logos on the bottom: 4 out of 7 are notorious greenwashing organisations:
1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_International#Criticism
2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Union_for_Conservation_of_Nature#Influence_and_criticism
3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_Conservancy#Criticism
4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Fund_for_Nature#Criticism
Two others are the Wildlife Conservation Society or former New York Zoological Society and the Zoological Society of London, whose motives are highly questionable: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/11/1113_031113_zoorole.html
This is akin to having an alcoholic manage a wine cellar. Unfortunately it is often the largest, wealthiest and most controversial organisations which use their influence to lobby their way up to prominent figures like the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, in order to protect their own interests. Is it a coincidence that WWF recently published their report “”mourning”” the loss of half of our wildlife in just half a century? Hardly, as they are at the very center of the problem: http://www.pandaleaks.org/book/
How can the Rhino’s be saved when companies like Jagex are supposed to of helped with it but instead just prove why they will be gone in another decade or so?
Take a thought at my experience of Jagex with Runescape; everyone on the game wanted a Rhino mainly as it added more experience for every skill etc in the game – meaning just use what you can from Rhinos without any other consideration! Well how hard was it to get a Rhino – far too easy as they just went to Runescape/Wiki and there was the answers everyone needed with no need to put their minds to work to consider how the question related to the answer for awareness! Whats different about Rhino to other pets in the game, non-interactive thus you can’t even talk to it like all the others hence a lack of care compared to all the other creatures in Runescape!!! Now look at Jagex themselves, on their site a promised deal of discount and an Aura for becoming or continuing membership but when I thought after 7 years of being away due to their failed website causing my account to be hacked that times had changed and now I may get a fair deal instead I got no discount, no Aura and when paying a bit more later for points to buy a special sword I got the points but no sword – all I seem to ever get from those mongrels is FRAUD.
This is also what I believe they have done for your charity, just treated it as a joke for their own gains. You need to find out how they were contacted by your organisation and what they will ever do to fix the considerable injustice which they have done to your charity. To use Rhino for their game they need to understand how rare a White Rhino actually was, no common as hell and easier to get with just 3 lame questions compared to a Black Rhino that needed just 7 questions all available on their wiki site!
For a company that has spent 15 years with this one game and continually treated the adults involved with such poor respect (actually most account holders all hate Jagex with a vengeance for how they ignore them all the time), it’s time the boot was on the other foot. Either this company takes notice of your intentions and the real people that pay money in their game or they should be shamed to the point where they have to sell up due to losses and allow someone honest to run that game!
Rhino like so many creatures are an essential part of the ecology chain and this is being destroyed left right and centre by a world that is too focused on money and not at all by the creatures of this earth. Here the Kiwi has been in danger for ages and now Kiwi people are even becoming rare in New Zealand. Hectors Dolphin, the Kea, various Seals, so many Bird species and even a many insect varieties are all likely to disappear in a decade or 2.
One of the root causes of all this is the population explosion of humans, near 230,000 more a day and at over 40 watts of heat per person per hour that’s more than a extra 250 million watts of global warming every day accumulative so as you will understand from this the only solution is reducing the population or leaving it to nature to intervene where humans are too dumb to help out.