Trustees
Robert Cleaves
One of the founders of The WILD Foundation and General
Counsel for many years, Dr. Cleaves is a retired attorney
and former jet test pilot. Currently, he holds the highest
civilian aeronautical license (“Airline Transport Pilot”)
issued by the FAA. His distinguished career includes service
to both government and the private sector, and he is founder
and President of Wilderness Conservancy. Considered an
expert on the use of aircraft in antipoaching, Dr. Cleaves
has been active in conservation in southern Africa for 30
years, and more recently in Mexico.
Michael Fay
Michael Fay received a Bachelor of Science from the
University of Arizona and then spent six years with the
Peace Corps as a botanist in national parks in Tunisia and
the savannas of the Central African Republic. He went on to
work with Peter Raven at the Missouri Botanical Garden,
originally to do a floristic study on a mountain range along
Sudans western border, before ending up completing his Ph.D.
on the western lowland gorilla. t was at this time that he
first entered the forests of central Africa where he still
works. Doctoral work was curtailed several times while he
surveyed large forest blocks and worked to create and manage
the Dzanga-Sangha and Nouabale-Ndoki parks in the Central
African Republic and Congo. In 1996, Fay started flying a
small airplane low over the forests of Congo and Gabon and
realized that there was a vast, intact forest corridor that
spanned these two countries from the Oubangui to the
Atlantic Ocean.
In 1997 he decided to walk the entire corridor, over 2000
miles, systematically surveying trees, wildlife and human
impacts on twelve uninhabited forest blocks. He further
developed this project, titled the Megatransect, with the
objective of bringing to the worlds attention the last
pristine blocks of forest in central Africa and the need for
protection. Mike has worked for the past thirteen years for
the Wildlife Conservation Society of the Bronx and for the
past four years as an Explorer in Resident at the National
Geographic Society in Washington, DC. He is currently
focused on the redwood forests of Northern California,
conducting an extended megatransect of this critically
endangered ecosystem.
Patricio Robles Gil
A professional nature photographer and devoted
conservationist, Patricio Robles Gil founded Agrupación
Sierra Madre and Unidos para la Conservación in 1989 and
1992, respectively. He is currently president of both
organizations and has, throughout his career, served as a
liaison between various sectors of society in order to
broadcast and carry out conservation projects on behalf of
the natural wealth of Mexico and the world. Robles Gil has
worked jointly with renowned organizations and institutions
like Conservation International, World Wildlife Fund, and US
Fish and Wildlife Service, among others.
As a nature photographer, he has traveled throughout four
continents to photograph wilderness and biodiversity.
Patricio’s photographs have appeared in many well-known
magazines such as Terre Sauvage, Natural History,
International Wildlife, and National Geographic, among
others. He has also participated as an editor and graphic
designer for twenty five books that have helped define the
global agenda for conservation. He has co-authored several
books with The WILD Foundation, including Transboundary
Conservation, The Last of the Wild, and Human Footprint:
Challenges for Wilderness and Biodiversity.
Patricio has earned numerous honors for his work as a
photographer and conservationist such as: the Recognition
Award and the Outstanding Nature Photographer Award, both
presented by the North American Nature Photography
Association (NANPA), and an honorary mention for the Premio
Nacional al Mérito Ecológico by Mexico’s former President,
Vicente Fox. He is also a founding member of International
League of Conservation Photographers, an initiative of The
WILD Foundation. Among many other things, he is also WILD’s
leading partner in the planning and implementation of WILD 9
– the 9th World Wilderness Congress, scheduled for 2009 in
Mexico.
Bittu Sahgal
Bittu Sahgal’s innate affinity for nature, borne of frequent
treks and camping trips to the Indian wilderness, has
propelled his career in both publishing and on-the-ground
activism for nature conservation. He publishes Cub Magazine,
and The Ecologist Asia, plus an environmental features
syndication service. He is founder and editor of Sanctuary
Magazine and has produced over thirty conservation-oriented
documentary films seen by millions of Indians over the
national television Network, Doordarshan, in the 1980s.
Bittu’s eloquent outspokenness against destructive
development projects, the use of toxic chemicals, government
usurpation of natural resources belonging to communities at
large, and much more, has put him in high profile struggles
too numerous to record. His ability to influence government
policy through his enlightened activism is well known. Bittu
has held several honorary positions on government and
non-government committees including the Indian Board for
Wildlife, Project Tiger, Environment Expert Committee,
Animal Welfare Board, and the Maharashtra Advisory Board. In
2004 Sahgal received the Society for Conservation Biology,
Distinguished Service Award (Education and Journalism). He
also founded the highly successful Kids for Tigers, an
all-India initiative in which kids lobby to save the Bengal
tiger.
Partha Sarathy
Partha Sarathy, a former long-term Board member of The WILD
Foundation and Chair of the 6th Word Wildeness Congress, has
been involved in conservation both nationally as well as
internationally for over four decades. Sarathy participated
in the conservation movement in India for several years, at
both Government and NGO levels - as an active protagonist of
“Project Tiger,” among other initiatives. He founded the
Bangalore office of the World Wildlife Fund and was elected
its Chair, as a member of the National Board of WWF in
Delhi, and as a representative for India at meetings of the
International Board of WWF. He was later elected to the
Board of IUCN and as Chair of its Commission on Education
and Communication for nearly nine years, during which he
established branches of IUCN's Commission on Education in
East Africa and Eastern Europe. He was named Chair of the
IUCN Task Force on the Asian Elephant and spear-headed the
movement against Ivory Poaching. Sarathy also participated
in the drafting of “Agenda 21” as a member of the
Preparatory Committee of the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and
was named a member of the United Nations University (Tokyo,
Japan) Committee on Traditional Knowledge.
Partha leads a very active life traveling all over the world
carrying his missionary spirit towards the protection of the
environment. He writes frequently, is a broadcaster, and an
international award-winning film-maker. He was awarded the
“Palm d' Orr” Award at the International Film Festival in
Cannes, France, as well as the Foreign Press Association
Award in the USA for Technical Direction of a feature film.
Partha founded NatureScreen International, an international
film festival organization which organizes film festivals on
nature-related subjects all over the world. He also founded
the International Environmental Film Festival organization
in South Africa, and is involved with several other
international film festivals. He lives with his wife, two
children and two grand-daughters in Bangalore, India.
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