We are happy to announce that the ongoing cooperation between Rewilding Europe and the WILD Foundation has now been formalized in a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
This MoU was signed by Vance Martin, president of the WILD Foundation, and Frans Schepers, Managing Director of Rewilding Europe, on 5 November 2011. But of course it is not the MoU, but the spirit, the positive working relationships and the ‘click’ between the two organizations at the institutional and the personal level that motivates this more formal step.
The WILD Foundation started its history in Africa and then established a United States based non-for-profit organization in 1974, based in Colorado. The WILD Foundation works for wilderness, wildlife and people in the United States and throughout the world and is the founder and steward of the World Wilderness Congress.
Rewilding Europe and the WILD Foundation have a lot to offer to each other, as we have complementary programmes in our mutually fields of endeavor of making Europe – and the world – a wilder place than it is now.
We have identified a number of key areas where we will cooperate, the main one being the 10th World Wilderness Congress – WILD10 – which will be held in Salamanca in Spain in October 2013, very close to the Western Iberia rewilding area (for a first announcement see the WILD website). Rewilding Europe is a member of the WILD 10 Executive Committee and will take a very active role during WILD10. We have some very ambitious plans together with the WILD Foundation to ensure that WILD10 will give a very strong boost to rewilding activities in both Europe and elsewhere. The opportunities are many!
Apart from WILD10, we see other opportunities to work together, among others the sharing of networks, learning of rewilding examples from all over the world, joint fundraising and mutual promotion. Rewilding Europe is looking forward for a continued, warm and inspirational cooperation with the WILD Foundation. Together we will work hard to promote a new conservation vision for Europe, achieving practical results for the return of wild nature and wildlife in and outside the rewilding areas, and for new economies based on the wild values.