WILD

International Conservation and Environment at Obama Inauguration

The international conservation and environmental community – working around the world for wildlife, wilderness, and native peoples – gathered in Washington DC last night to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama and to acknowledge a 200 year old tradition…the peaceful, democratic transition of power in the United States.  It was a fun and moving evening at the gala banquet of the International Conservation Caucus Foundation (ICCF).

The 700 guests included 200 members of Congress and the diplomatic corps; leaders of all the major US-based international conservation organizations [Conservation International (CI), WWF, The Nature Conservancy, Wildlife Conservation Society; and others];  numerous celebrities including Ashley Judd, Robert Duvall, Ed Norton (who received the ICCF “Good Steward” Award); senior government agency conservationists; corporate leaders from Toyota, Walmart, American Forest and Paper and a dozen other companies; and many more.

David Barron, President of the ICCF and an active director of The WILD Foundation since 1988, initiated the International Conservation Caucus as a WILD project in 1990, originally titled The WILD Foundation’s Congressional Advisory Board. It grew into its own foundation 12 years later when Pete Seligman (Chairman, Conservation International, recognized its potential and began to provide significant funding, and the leaders of the other big Environmental NGOs joined the coalition), and has since become a singularly effective education and policy tool for Members of the US Congress.

WILD is a very active member of ICCF’s Conservation Council, and with our sister organization the Wilderness Foundation (Africa) we annually host numerous delegations of Congressmen and senior staff at our projects in Southern Africa, and present briefings on Capitol Hill in DC on international conservation issues.  Working with Dave and his small team of talented and very committed staff is always fun, productive and effective way to move the conservation agenda forward.

We represented WILD and WILD9 last night with a full table that included friends and colleagues such as Ernesto Enkerlin (head of CONANP, Mexico’s protected area agency), Joel Holtrup (Deputy Chief, US Forest Service), Ambassador James Spaulding, Dieter Schramm (President, CIC-Wildlife), Karen Ross from Botswana, His Imperial Highness Ermias Sahle Selassie of Ethiopia and his wife, and others. I was also very pleased to receive on behalf of Maggie Bryant (a long-serving WILD director and supporter), a Lifetime Achievement Award recognizing Maggie’s very unusual and extensive commitment to international conservation issues. Many of the evening’s stunning images of wilderness, wildlife, and traditional communities around the world were supplied by the International League of Conservation Photographers, a project within The WILD Foundation.

The night began with a formal presentation of the colors by the US Marine Corps color guard, accompanied an unusual and very moving version of the Star Spangled Banner by the Kenya Boys Choir, in traditional dress. There were few dry eyes in the house. The fun, pomp, and circumstance ended at 10:15pm with a fabulous hip-hop song by the all-black youth choir from the Ron Clark School in Atlanta, Georgia.

Wilderness, wildlife, and people around the world are the beneficiaries of the hard work, projects and policies the ICCF and its members.  Let’s hope that the whole world will be the beneficiary of the vision and commitment of the 44^th US President, Barack Obama.   As my Latin friends say….Obamanos!

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