Monday, 10 November 2008

Cambodian Conservation

Contract Magazine
Nov 10, 2008

New York—Humanscale, a long-time supporter of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) through its annual Faces in the Wild art auction, has announced a new initiative aimed at protecting a rich and diverse ecosystem. Through a three-year, $750,000 sponsorship of a new WWF program, Humanscale will help prevent the destruction of habitats and varieties of indigenous wildlife that occupy nearly 1.5 million acres of wilderness in Eastern Cambodia. This region currently faces a questionable future as illegal poachers, loggers, and squatters are systematically destroying the area and its wildlife.

In partnership with WWF and the Cambodian government, Humanscale will help fund patrols in the Phnom Prich Wildlife Sanctuary and in the corridor that links the sanctuary to the adjacent Mondulkiri Protection Forest—a contiguous area of 1,472,000 acres where WWF already leads conservation efforts that benefit tigers, leopards, Asian elephants, wild water buffalo and other cattle, birds, deer, and other species indigenous only to Eastern Cambodia. A new multi-agency mobile enforcement unit will also be established to reduce the illegal trade in tiger and tiger prey in Mondulkiri province.

"It's terrific that so many companies are now making headway in efforts to reduce, reuse, and recycle, but these changes alone are not going to protect endangered species and preserve habitats that are in the process of being destroyed," says Robert King, Humanscale's founder and CEO and a WWF board member. "The truth is, having zero environmental impact isn't good enough anymore. Unless others take action soon, we may very well lose important eco-regions like those in Eastern Cambodia forever. We will pass on to our children a very different planet than our parents passed on to us."

"This project represents the next step of the green evolution—protecting the remaining regions of wilderness on our planet," says Humanscale's vice president of marketing Tom Revelle. "It's about companies doing more than just cleaning their own houses. It's about proactively protecting the remaining regions of the wilderness on our planet."

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