Inside the Dark History of a Beloved Icon

It has been more than two years since Buzzfeed News published an in-depth series that revealed the use of paramilitary anti-poaching squads by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) to evict Indigenous peoples from their lands to make room for conservation parks.^[1]

Like something out of the CIA’s Operation Condor or Phoenix Program, these units used violent force, torturing, raping, and murdering poor natives in a purported attempt to root out wildlife traffickers in the community.

As hard-hitting as the report seemed to have been, one wonders how deep the exposé really was and what it truly achieved. Because, if you dig even just a little bit further (i.e., read some Wikipedia entries), you learn that this was not even the non-governmental organization’s (NGO’s) first use of paramilitary violence. And if you excavate even further, you learn that the WWF has a long history of deception, secret societies, and connections to U.S. and British intelligence—that, in fact, the WWF’s anti-poaching schemes might not be that different from Condor and Phoenix after all.

In a previous investigation, this author turned up a covert history of the world’s largest “conservation” organization and political violence that directly ties to the broader network of nature non-profits today.^[2] The full report can be found at The Reality^TM Institute, but key details will be summarized here before further developments are discussed.

To start, the WWF was founded by the power elite itself: the UK’s Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld, the husband to Princess Juliana of Holland,^[3] along with eugenicist Sir Julian Huxley^[4] and Godfrey Anderson Rockefeller, Sr.,^[5] of the Rockefeller Rockefellers. While all of these characters are deserving of their own investigations, Prince Bernhard in particular provides strikingly clear connections to the world of espionage that call for closer scrutiny to the entire organization.

These connections began before World War II, when the Prince was a member of the Nazi Reiter-SS and the Reich’s paramilitary Sturmabteilung.^[6] He then worked for IG Farben’s N.W. 7 division, essentially the corporate espionage division of the Nazi conglomerate.^[7] IG Farben is, of course, best known for manufacturing Zyklon B, the deadly chemical used to exterminate the Jews and others in the gas chambers, and probably less known in its modern form: chemical giant BASF, agro-medical giant Bayer (new owner of Monsanto), pharmaceutical giant Sanofi, and imaging company Agfa.^[8]

Bernhard was not all Nazi, though: He publicly shed his German affiliations and fled to the Netherlands, where he acted as one of the leaders of the Dutch resistance.^[9] This provided him with an opportunity to add British and U.S. intelligence to his network. During this time, he would come to be friends with the architect of the CIA, its future director Allen Dulles.^[10] In fact, the Prince went so far as to recommend Dutch intelligence agents that the CIA director could use as assets.^[11]

That Bernhard was willing to use the WWF for political means could be evidenced by a 1973 telegram sent by U.S. diplomat Kingdon Gould, Jr., to U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Gould wrote that Bernhard offered up the establishment of a nature park in the Sinai desert as a demilitarized zone, paid for by the WWF. Gould commented, “OBVIOUS ADVANTAGES WOULD FLOW FROM HAVING A GENUINE AND ENORMOUSLY IMPORTANT NON-HUMAN REASON FOR MINIMIZING HUMAN ACTIVITY IN THE AREA, AND FROM THE INTRODUCTION OF AN ECOLOGICALLY-ORIENTED INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION SUCH AS THE WORLD WILDLIFE FUND. IT WOULD ALSO SERVE AS A FACE-SAVING DEVICE FOR ANY COUNTRY WHICH MUST YIELD SOVEREIGNTY TO A DEMILITARIZED AREA.” Gould followed up by saying that the concept was mentioned to an Israeli ambassador, who said that the Israelis would consider it.^[13]

Bernhard went on to establish a meeting series dedicated to improving transatlantic relations. That organization was the now-infamous, absolutely-not-sinister Bilderberg, where the world’s leaders meet once a year to hash out such global policy decisions as the creation of the Euro.^[15]

Though the formation of Bilderberg is enough to warrant its own scrutiny, it was another secret society that had more obvious implications for the WWF. “The 1001: A Nature Trust,” which still exists today, served as the initial basis for the conservation organization’s financial backing.

It consisted of 1,000 members, plus the Prince, each contributing $10,000 to support the operations of the WWF. One might think that the group’s donors were simply attempting to address the ecological issues of the world; however, two details would seem to counter that naïve perspective.

First, the membership list of the 1001 Nature Trust was a secret, even to the leadership of the WWF, which suggests something beyond ordinary philanthropy. Secondly, when the members were disclosed in the 1980s, it revealed some of the most notable members of the deep state, overworld and underworld figures alike.

These ranged from David Rockefeller, Henry Ford, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Harry Oppenheimer of South African-British mining giant Anglo American Corporation; Muslim spiritual leader and billionaire Karim Aga Khan, Shell CEO and future WWF president John H. Loudon; and Philip Morris CEO Joseph Cullman III to dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, arms trafficker Adnan Khashoggi, Sheikh Salim bin Laden, the older brother of Osama bin Laden; Franco’s Minister of Information; embezzler and drug and arms trafficker Robert Vesco; Swiss embezzler for Meyer Lansky’s mob family Tibor Rosenbaum; and Agha Hasan Abedi, the founder of Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), a bank used by drug traffickers and the CIA alike to launder funds.^[16]

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To understand the motives behind this group, one could look at its operations in South Africa. Not only were South Africans over-represented in the Nature Trust group at one time, constituting 60 out of the 1,001 members, but also because the president of WWF-South Africa was Anton Rupert.

Rupert was the country’s richest man and one who associated himself with the fascist Afrikaner Broederbond. A hidden clique responsible for maintaining apartheid, the Broederbond was made up of South African industrialists and politicians who most benefitted from the racist state. This included every prime minister and state president from 1948 until the end of apartheid in 1994.^[17]

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A number of the 60 South Africans in the 1001: A Nature Trust were also in the Broederbond, including the chairman of the country’s largest bank, the former managing director of the Sanlam financial group, and the chair of the nation’s mining and industrial trade group, which was a major supporter of the apartheid regime’s National Party.

The 1001 also included in its ranks members of the South African Defense Advisory Council, the director of Mercabank, and multiple individuals involved in the Muldergate scandal, an intelligence operation in which the South African government purchased foreign newspapers abroad to peddle pro-apartheid propaganda.^[18]

The hidden hand of this group of South African interests could be seen in the WWF’s work in the country in 1987. As the apartheid regime was in its death throes, the WWF was involved in what would seem to be a risky and untimely anti-poaching program in the troubled nation and across the continent.

Dubbed Operation Lock, the project involved the organization funding a group of rangers to infiltrate the illegal African wildlife trade and take it down using methods similar to that of a drug network sting. To staff the crew, Bernhard chose former members of the Special Air Service (SAS), the British equivalent of the Green Berets, in the form of a mercenary firm called KAS Enterprises,^[19] founded by MI6 officer David Stirling.^[20]

In a post-apartheid investigation in 1995, a Mandela government body learned that KAS was actually participating in its own illegal wildlife trafficking.

Moreover, Operation Lock’s leader, former SAS Commander Ian Cooke, made an offer to undermine the anti-apartheid movement. The inquiry obtained documents discussing Cooke’s plans to use the ivory trade network to gain intelligence on “anti-South African countries” and “monitor anti-South African bodies.” KAS also maintained a list of people from Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) it planned to assassinate.^[21]

Irish filmmaker and investigative journalist Kevin Dowling spoke to one member of the South African secret service who claimed that KAS fought the ANC directly and relied on the country’s famous Kruger National Park to train and execute its missions. Though the film itself is impossible to find after Dowling’s untimely death, he did discuss the following in an interview for the book PandaLeaks:

“The KAS mercenaries used the Kruger National Park as a training grounds to train paramilitary units such as the Koevoet Squad from Namibia. They were then deployed against the ANC as part of the so-called ‘third force.’ This officially non-existent execution squad murdered around 6,000 opponents of the apartheid regime in South Africa.”^[22]

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It would seem that KAS was involved in the apartheid government’s attempts to maintain supremacy as it waged wars across the continent. For instance, the company linked up with the Rhino and Elephant Foundation, whose president, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, established his own hit squads trained by South African Military Intelligence,^[23] while his Inkatha movement was paid in secret by South African police to oppose the ANC.^[24]

Additionally, a senior KAS employee had been involved with UNITA, a CIA-backed rebel movement in Angola.^[25] Commander Cooke’s unit inserted itself in trafficking groups and governments across Africa, including Mozambique, the Central African Republic, Togo, Zambia, Swaziland, Namibia, Kenya and Zimbabwe.

In this last country, Cooke linked up with Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organisation and the chief warden of Zimbabwe’s national parks, who boasted a “shoot-to-kill” policy against poachers. This would implicate the WWF directly in horrific violence when the non-profit awarded Zimbabwe’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management the funds to acquire a helicopter meant to defend the nation’s black rhino population from poachers.^[26]

Stephen Ellis wrote for the Independent, “KAS succeeded in working with Zimbabwean game wardens and funding a helicopter for anti-poaching operations in the Zambezi Valley^[27].” The park turned the vehicle into a gunship used to murder at least 57 poachers.

Former New York Times and New Yorker journalist Raymond Bonner said of the campaign, “The truth is the organization knew that the helicopter would be used in operations in which poachers would be killed. Indeed, there had been a long and fierce debate within WWF about the project, and many on the staff were opposed because Zimbabwe’s policy was ‘Shoot first, ask questions later,’ as one of those involved in the debate puts it. Providing the helicopter ‘made the policy more effective,’ he said. As for WWF’s statement that it did not provide funds for arms or ammunition, the organization’s internal documents show that it was doing precisely that for at least one project in Tanzania in 1987.”^[28]

The investigation by the Mandela government determined that the WWF “cannot contend that it had no knowledge of Lock or was totally divorced from it,” as Operation Lock was discussed in the organization’s internal documents.^[29]

While it could be denied that the WWF was involved in Operation Lock, Prince Bernhard took great pains to demonstrate financial separation between the organization and the operation. The Prince and Princess Juliana sold two works of art from their own collection in 1988, taking in £700,000 that was deposited to a Swiss WWF bank account. Charles de Haes, Director General of the WWF, then transferred £500,000 of these funds to the Prince for a private project in 1989.^[30] The project? Operation Lock.

Though the story was made public in 1991, it seemed not to damage the reputation of the Prince, who had already suffered immensely from his participation in a global bribery scandal involving Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.^[31]

It also did not damage the WWF. The organization continues to be the largest conservation group in the world, with some five million members and more than 3,000 projects across more than 100 countries. With historical context in mind, it is difficult not to think of ulterior motives for these operations, which some have accused of supporting large corporations in gaining access to natural resources by kicking Indigenous groups off of their land, cordoning off a portion for preservation, and then allowing their corporate backers to extract from the rest.

Of course, none of this was discussed in BuzzFeed’s explosive series. That is not to say it was without impact. Activists expressed outrage, with the Rainforest Foundation issuing a letter signed by over a dozen Indigenous rights groups.

Meanwhile, celebrities performed their own actions against the charity. A prominent backer, the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, requested the WWF make a “full and transparent” inquiry into the “extremely concerning” claims. Supporter and actor Susan Sarandon, urged for an investigation. Celebrity ambassador for the WWF Ben Fogle stepped down from his position.^[32]

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The WWF hired British law firm Kingsley Napley, which emphasized reputation protection services, to perform an independent review of the new allegations against the organization. To lead the inquiry, it appointed the former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, to examine the claims made about the organization’s abuses of Indigenous groups.^[33]

Pillay had also been a judge at the International Criminal Court, and president of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, known for its problematic neglect of accusations of genocide against the country’s dictator, Paul Kagame.^[34]

Pillay’s report was ultimately published online, where it confirmed the accounts derailed by BuzzFeed News. Though it claimed that Covid-19 prevented the panel from visiting the locations of abuse, it did conclude that the WWF did not follow “its own commitments to respect human rights.” It did not implicate high-level executives within the charity as being responsible for continued abuses, despite the fact that these executives had conducted their own internal reviews and were aware of what was happening on the ground.^[35]

Politicians in the U.S., UK and Germany initiated reviews of the organization. The UK Charity Commission began a formal investigation into the WWF’s branch in the UK.^[36] An inquiry into WWF Germany led by Markus Löning, an ex-member of German parliament and former human rights commissioner, concluded that there were “gaps in the procedures for human rights diligence.”

The overall report, released only in German, suggested mere negligence and a lack of accountability on the part of the WWF. It recommended that the WWF should rarely rely on secret informant networks and only when the appropriate “security measures” were in place. The report further argued that the organization establish “a human rights department” and better train its staff.^[37]

The Committee on Natural Resources within the U.S. House of Representatives made a formal request to the Government Accountability Office for an investigation into whether any government funds went toward the anti-poaching units that committed human rights abuses. Specifically, the committee asked the U.S. branch of the charity to provide any documentation related to possible abuses, including internal human rights reports and manuals used to train staff as it related to Indigenous people at WWF parks.^[38]

The U.S. Department of the Interior reviewed $125 million in grants related to anti-poaching since 2013 and withheld an unstated amount of proposed funding for the organization.^[39]

Outside of official inquiries, BuzzFeed itself found that the U.S. government doled out $157 million in grants across 15 years to the WWF. This included $10 million specifically for “armed guards, rangers and enforcement.” Grant documents described the use of this money for such applications as “special arrest teams,” “rigorous” training for anti-poaching rangers, “patrol strategy,” “intelligence sharing,” and “informant networks.”

The money was in some cases directed to parks where the charity was already aware of abuses taking place. This included Cameroon, where a 2015 internal report noted that guards were looting villages. WWF Cameroon received millions in funds from the Interior Department’s U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and USAID after the report was delivered, including one grant that provided $2 million specifically for “armed guards, rangers and enforcement” in the Congo Basin.^[40]

USAID continued funding the WWF even after the non-profit determined that its co-managed Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo was the site of grotesque abuses involving the gang rape of pregnant women and torture of men’s penises with fishing line. BuzzFeed wrote:

“The Interior [Department] declined to comment on whether WWF had ever reported any abuse allegations. A USAID spokesperson said the agency learned about the Salonga allegations in May 2018 and ‘immediately’ addressed them with WWF, but did not provide any further detail. Additionally, the charity notified the agency about abuse allegations at a different Congolese reserve in 2017, he said, after which USAID also took ‘immediate action.’ USAID provides funding through its partners ‘for training and non-lethal equipment,’ the spokesperson said, but does not ‘directly support armed guards or law enforcement through support such as salaries.’”^[41]

In discussing this issue, BuzzFeed neglected to mention that USAID has long been used as a cutout for the CIA in its international operations, often for destabilizing foreign governments.^[42] Moreover, it missed that KAS Enterprises specifically noted that Fish and Wildlife could be used as a means of delivering illegal espionage equipment into South Africa, to circumvent embargoes in place at the time.^[43]

In spite of what was brought to light by BuzzFeed News, the Department of the Interior began allowing some grants to continue with the WWF, noting “we feel confident the proper controls are in place.”

To press further action, Committee on Natural Resources member Rob Bishop (R.-Utah) introduced legislation that would prevent the director of Interior’s U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service from giving out funding to groups “that fund or support gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”

Organizations that do receive grants would be required to report credible allegations as quickly as possible. Groups that apply for grants in “high-risk” countries would have to explain how they would protect human rights and what accountability measures they have in place. They would also have to be audited by an independent third party.^[45]

In its 2020 appropriations agreement, the House included language related to protecting the rights of Indigenous groups, including mandates that the Department of the Interior establish protection to these groups, proper training and monitoring for park rangers, and “effective grievance and redress mechanisms for victims of human rights violations and other misconduct.”^[46]

In a form of symbolic action, the WWF suspended support for the park in the DRC until local authorities completed their investigation.^[47] However, within a year of the backlash against the organization, another Indigenous person was murdered at an already problematic park in Nepal.^[48]

Except for attempts by various governments to invoke minor actions against the non-profit, one might consider what other tangible outcomes the BuzzFeed series had. Most importantly, could it be said to have reduced the revenues of the massive charity in any significant way?

The answer would appear to be “not really.” According to the WWF’s publicly disclosed financial report for 2020, the organization had revenues of $347,579,571, roughly $40 million more than the $308,292,650 taken in during 2019.^[49] This was during a year in which a pandemic rendered losses across nearly all global economies across nearly all industries. The organization obtained more individual donations, government grants, and in-kind donations year-on-year from 2019 to 2020, suggesting that not only did the BuzzFeed series not hurt the charity’s image but the government actions taken did not restrict the WWF financially either.

In every post in the BuzzFeed series, the website includes an email asking readers to send in news tips. This author reached out to two of the authors of the series, Tom Warren and Katie Baker, directing them to my research and asking if they had thought at all about writing follow-up articles including the information regarding Operation Lock and more. However, there was no response to three emails over the course of three months.

It is difficult to say what one should take away from this. Would it have been more disruptive to the non-profit had BuzzFeed explored the intelligence background of the WWF?

At the very least, the public might have gained more in-depth knowledge about a group like the WWF and possibly questioned its current intentions, as well as those of other conservation groups. For instance, does the fact that WWF works with some of the most problematic corporate partners in greenwashing campaigns demonstrate that it has not given up its covert activities? Instead, could it be simply applying tactics deployed in Operation Lock on behalf of corporate clients instead of (or in addition to) governments?

Could organizations like Save the Elephants have similar ulterior motives when arguing for greater anti-poaching funding? Why are these non-profits staffed with ex-CIA officers and army personnel going to continents like Africa to train anti-poaching squads? For instance, there was Project Grey Goose, led by CIA chief targeting officer Nada Bakos, which had the goal of collecting intelligence related to rhino poachers.^[50]

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Or there was Veterans Empowered to Protect African Wildlife, who had gone to Tanzania to train park rangers.^[51] However, they were kicked out of the country not long after the exposure of Operation Tokomeza, wherein the country’s rangers executed violent acts of abuse not unlike those related to WWF rangers.^[52]

Was there any reason why the U.S. State Department was regularly receiving updates about Tokomeza during its aftermath? We may understand more when the emails are declassified circa 2024 and 2026.^[53] Perhaps it had something to do with USAID, AFRICOM, the WWF, and the African Wildlife Foundation training rangers in the country in 2011.^[54]

I also wonder about another conservation organization started by Prince Bernhard and Anton Rupert. After Lock was exposed, the two started a group called the Peace Parks Foundation in 1997. The goal of the charity is to establish transnational areas, Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs), with the purported goal of promoting biodiversity that can flourish more easily when national boundaries do not get in the way.

These TFCAs are networked to create parks that can span multiple countries. This included Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe, in the case of the Great Limpopo TFCA;^[56] and Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, in the case of Kavango Zambezi TFCA.^[57]

While such areas may be beneficial to wildlife, they may also serve as ideal cover for carrying out transnational military actions. As demonstrated by Bernhard and Rupert in the past, such operations are not out of the realm of reason.

Had BuzzFeed gone into the covert history of the WWF, could we have had something similar to the Church Committee but related to conservation charities? In turn, the U.S. Congress might have taken the WWF down a peg or even broken it up into smaller independent conservation organizations, thus, diminishing the clout that it has as a larger unit. Maybe not, but we may never know unless this information is spread far and wide.

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1. Tom Warren and Katie J. Baker. 2019. “WWF Funds Guards Who Have Tortured And Killed People.” BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tomwarren/wwf-world-wide-fund-nature-parks-torture-death?bftwnews#4ldqpgc. ↑

2. Michael Molitch-Hou “Paramilitary Panda: WWF Land Grabs Rooted in Covert Apartheid History.” The Reality^TM Institute. https://therealityinstitute.net/2019/09/paramilitary-panda-wwf-land-grabs-rooted-in-covert-apartheid-history/. ↑

3. World Wildlife Fund for Nature. 2021. “HISTORY.” WWF Official Website. https://www.worldwildlife.org/about/history. ↑

4. David Hubback, “Julian Huxley and Eugenics,” In Evolutionary Studies. Studies in Biology, Economy and Society, ed. M. Keynes and G.A. Harrison London: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09958-0_13. ↑

5. World Wildlife Fund for Nature. 2010. “In Memoriam: Godfrey A. Rockefeller.” WWF Official Website. https://web.archive.org/web/20131212173445/https://www.worldwildlife.org/press-releases/in-memoriam-godfrey-a-rockefeller. ↑

6. Bruno Waterfield,. “Dutch Prince Bernhard ‘was member of Nazi party.’” The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/netherlands/7377402/Dutch-Prince-Bernhard-was-member-of-Nazi-party.html. ↑

7. Antony Sutton. Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler. (Seal Beach: ‘76 Press, 1976), http://aaargh.vho.org/fran/livres5/suttonhitler.pdf. ↑

8. The Fritz Bauer Institute. 2005. “IG Farben-Haus Geschichte und Gegenwart.” The Fritz Bauer Institute. https://web.archive.org/web/20070314121616/http://www.fritz-bauer-institut.de/info/ig-farben-haus.htm. ↑

9. BBC. 2004. “Obituary: Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands.” BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/749465.stm. ↑

10. Bernard Weinraub, “Bernhard’s Northrop Ties Bring a Wave of Questions.” The New York Times, September 5, 1976. https://www.nytimes.com/1976/09/05/archives/bernhards-northrop-ties-bring-a-wave-of-questions-princes-financial.html. ↑

11. Molitch-Hou. “Paramilitary Panda: WWF Land Grabs Rooted in Covert Apartheid History.” ↑

12. “CIA Director’s Meeting Report, Tuesday, 11 September 1951.” CIA Historical Collections Division, May 2, 2012.https://therealityinstitute.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Bernhard-offers-DCI.pdf ↑

13. Molitch-Hou. “Paramilitary Panda: WWF Land Grabs Rooted in Covert Apartheid History.” ↑

14. Gould, Kingdon. PRINCE BERNHARD’S PROPOSAL FOR WILDLIFE REFUGE IN THE SINAI, December 21, 1973, June 30, 2005.https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1973THEHA05612_b.html ↑

15. Andrew Rettman, “‘Jury’s out’ on future of Europe, EU doyen says.” Euobserver. https://euobserver.com/political/27778. ↑

16. Stephen Ellis, “Of elephants and men: politics and nature conservation in South Africa.” Journal of Southern African Studies, 20, no. 1 (June 2010): Pages 53-69. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057079408708386. ↑

17. Ibid. ↑

18. Ibid. ↑

19. Ibid. ↑

20. Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016), 333. ↑

21. M.B. Kumleben,. “COMMISSION OF INQUIRY INTO THE ALLEGED SMUGGLING OF AND ILLEGAL TRADE IN IVORY AND RHINOCEROS HORN IN SOUTH AFRICA.” Scribd. https://www.scribd.com/doc/121327879/Kumleben-Commission-Report. ↑

22. Wilfried Huisman, PandaLeaks: The Dark Side of the WWF (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014), 109. ↑

23. Padraig O’Malley, “GOLDSTONE COMMISSION ON ALLEGATIONS OF SADF FUNDING OF VIOLENCE IN TOWNSHIPS.” O’Malley The Heart of Hope, 1991, https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02039/04lv02046/05lv02047/06lv02049/07lv02062.htm. ↑

24. Howard Witt, “S. AFRICA ADMITS COVERT FUNDING OF ANC RIVAL INKATHA MOVEMENT.” Chicago Tribune, July 20, 1991. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1991-07-20-9103210235-story.html. ↑

25. Julian Rademeyer, Killing for Profit: Exposing the Illegal Rhino Horn Trade (Cape Town: Penguin Random House South Africa, 213), 72. ↑

26. Paul Brown, “WWF paid for helicopter used to kill poachers.” The Guardian, September 4, 1990, 1. https://therealityinstitute.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/WWF-paid-for-helicopter-used-to-kill-poachers-The_Guardian_Tue__Sep_4__1990.pdf. ↑

27. Stephen Ellis, “Prince paid thousands into wildlife sting.” The Independent, January 8, 1991. ↑

28. Raymond Bonner, At the Hand of Man: Peril and Hope for Africa’s Wildlife (New York: Vintage, 1994). ↑

29. Kumleben. “COMMISSION OF INQUIRY INTO THE ALLEGED SMUGGLING OF AND ILLEGAL TRADE IN IVORY AND RHINOCEROS HORN IN SOUTH AFRICA.” ↑

30. Bonner. At the Hand of Man. ↑

31. Times Online, “Dead prince admits Dutch bribery scandal.” The Sunday Times, 2004. https://web.archive.org/web/20110523173052/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article398546.ece. ↑

32. Tom Warren and Katie J. Baker. 2019. “WWF Has Hired A Former Top UN Human Rights Official To Oversee Investigation Into Abuses Exposed By BuzzFeed News.” BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tomwarren/wwf-hires-former-top-un-human-rights-official-to-oversee. ↑

33. Ibid. ↑

34. Judi Rever, In Praise of Blood: The Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (New York: Penguin Random House, 2018). ↑

35. Tom Warren and Katie J. Baker, “WWF Admitted ‘Sorrow’ Over Human Rights Abuses.” BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katiejmbaker/wwf-human-rights-abuses-independent-review. ↑

36. Tom Warren, Katie J. Baker, and Alex Wickham. 2019. “UK Parliament Members Are Calling For An Investigation Into Government Funding Of WWF.” BuzzFeed News, https://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/members-of-uk-parliament-call-for-investigation-into. ↑

37. Tom Warren, Katie J. Baker, and Marcus Engert, “WWF Must Overhaul Its Human Rights Policies, A German Investigation Has Found.” BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tomwarren/wwf-germany-human-rights-overhaul. ↑

38. Tom Warren and Katie J. Baker, “A US Lawmaker Wants To Ban Funding For Conservation Groups That Support Human Rights Abuses.” BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katiejmbaker/a-us-lawmaker-wants-to-ban-funding-for-conservation-groups. ↑

39. Tom Warren and Katie J. Baker, “Lawmakers Seek Review Of Whether US Funds Anti-Poaching Forces Accused of Human Rights Abuses.” BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katiejmbaker/house-representatives-poaching-human-rights-abuses-grijalva. ↑

40. Tom Warren and Katie J. Baker, “The US Government Spent Millions Funding WWF-Backed Forces Accused Of Torture and Murder.” BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katiejmbaker/united-states-government-millions-wwf-guards-abuses. ↑

41. Ibid. ↑

42. Mark Ames, “The murderous history of USAID, the US Government agency behind Cuba’s fake Twitter clone.” Pando. https://pando.com/2014/04/08/the-murderous-history-of-usaid-the-us-government-agency-behind-cubas-fake-twitter-clone/. ↑

43. Molitch-Hou, “Paramilitary Panda: WWF Land Grabs Rooted in Covert Apartheid History.” ↑

44. Julian Rademeyer, “Leaked Operation Lock Report.” Killing for Profit/Scribd, n.d. https://www.scribd.com/document/120811525/Secret-Operation-Lock. ↑

45. Tom Warren and Katie J. Baker, “A US Lawmaker Wants to Ban Funding For Conservation Groups That Support Human Rights Abuses.” BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katiejmbaker/a-us-lawmaker-wants-to-ban-funding-for-conservation-groups. ↑

46. Ibid. ↑

47. Tom Warren and Katie J. Baker. 2019. “WWF Has Suspended Support For Rangers At A Major Nature Reserve After A Suspicious Death.” BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tomwarren/wwf-has-suspended-support-for-rangers-at-africas-largest. ↑

48. Tom Warren and Katie J. Baker, “WWF Says It Is ‘Troubled’ By An Alleged Human Rights Violation At A Park With A History Of Violence.” BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katiejmbaker/wwf-human-rights-abuse-allegation-troubled-nepal. ↑

49. World Wildlife Fund for Nature. n.d. “FINANCIAL INFO.” WWF Official Site. https://www.worldwildlife.org/about/financials. ↑

50. Taia Global, Inc. 2012. “The Ian Somerhalder Foundation and Project Grey Goose Team Up To Stop Poachers.” Cision PR Newswire. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-ian-somerhalder-foundation-and-project-grey-goose-team-up-to-stop-poachers-158513195.html. ↑

51. Jon R. Anderson, “Reports: Nonprofit VETPAW kicked out of Tanzania.” Military Times. https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/2015/05/07/reports-nonprofit-vetpaw-kicked-out-of-tanzania/. ↑

52. Courtney Brooks and Marcelle Hopkins. 2016. “How Protecting Animals Led to Allegations of Torture and Rape.” National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/wildlife-tanzania-poaching-human-rights-abuses. ↑

53. M.A. Kirkpatrick letter to Rachel E. Spring. FW: Leahy Questions for Upcoming Training – Tokomeza, June 22, 2016.https://foia.state.gov/Search/Results.aspx?searchText=”Tokomeza”&beginDate=&endDate=&publishedBeginDate=&publishedEndDate=&caseNumber= ↑

54. Molitch-Hou, “Paramilitary Panda: WWF Land Grabs Rooted in Covert Apartheid History.” ↑

55. Jeff Andrews, USAREUR ITAM Operations Coordinator. US Army Europe: Sharing the ITAM Tenets with Multinational Partners in Africa. USAREUR, n.d. https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a567886.pdf. ↑

56. Republic of South Africa Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment. n.d. “Transfrontier Conservation Areas.” Republic of South Africa Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Official Website. https://www.environment.gov.za/projectsprogrammes/transfrontier_conservation_areas#great_limpopo. ↑

57. KAVANGO ZAMBEZI Official Website. 2019. “About Kaza.” Kaza Official Website. https://www.kavangozambezi.org/en/about/about-kaza. ↑

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