Based on its logo depicting an adorable panda, most people think the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is run by “nice people saving furry animals,” chief executive officer Carter Roberts said during a November 12 discussion hosted by the Kogod School of Business and the Sine Institute of Policy and Politics. 

Roberts engaged in conversation with Dean David Marchick before a crowd of several dozen people—and many more online—at the Veloric Center for Entrepreneurship as part of Kogod’s Gamechangers in Sustainability series. 

Working to save animals is not the major component of WWF’s mission, Roberts said. “That is part of what we do, but most of what we do is about saving nature, keeping nature intact in the world. And by nature, I mean the Brazilian Amazon, the Mekong River, the coral reefs of the Pacific, and the rivers flowing out of the Himalayas that provide water to three billion people on earth.”

Protecting these ecosystems is “fundamental to stabilizing climate, fundamental for the provision of food, fundamental for safe drinking water, and fundamental for life on earth,” Roberts said. “We do that by looking at the whole of a place and thinking about what the pressures on it are. It could be climate change, it could be food production, it could be infrastructure design.” In the US and in other countries, WWF works with governments and other institutions to “change the ways we meet the needs of people to keep nature intact,” Roberts said. 

In response to Marchick’s question about what two or three initiatives to protect nature he’s most proud of, Roberts described a program to protect the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. 

“We did a deal in Brazil starting 22 years ago that set aside 62 million hectares of land in the Amazon. That’s equal to one-and-a-half Californias,” Roberts said. The initiative includes a performance-based fund that pays the Brazilian government to keep the program intact. “That has worked through five different administrations in Brazil,” Roberts said. 

The program is a “model of durability and scale” that WWF has replicated in Colombia, Peru, and Bhutan. “Now we’re negotiating that in six other countries, and we’ve formed a partnership with the Nature Conservancy, the Pew Charitable Trust, and the Walton family—some of the leading foundations in this country—to repeat that model in 30 countries around the world. It’s the biggest play in the world of conservation—and it emphasizes providing jobs for people.”  

Roberts also said he was proud of programs WWF has created to certify paper, seafood, and aquaculture products for sustainability.

He touted fellowships and grants honoring Russell Train, founder and chair emeritus of WWF, that the organization provides to individuals around the globe to further conservation efforts through their research and leadership. The WWF was founded in 1961 by Train and others who sought funds to protect regions and species threatened by human development. 

Marchick noted that President Joe Biden led perhaps the most ambitious and successful climate initiative in the history of the US government, while a transition official for President-elect Donald Trump said they don’t have to measure or worry about emissions anymore.

What, Marchick asked, does the election mean for the nonpartisan WWF, and how will it pivot?

“Every country in the world is experiencing changes in government that are every bit as significant as the one that just happened,” Roberts said. “It just happened to happen in the United States. And what happens in the United States has consequences and ripple effects around the world.”

The WWF must develop initiatives that endure beyond national elections, he said. 

“We have to build programs that are durable between parties that are supported by financial incentives, the private sector, and civil society—[initiatives] that don’t just disappear overnight when a new head of state is elected,” Roberts said.