Global — Strategic Review for Wildlife Conservation Society’s International Program (WCS/ ; 2002-2002)

The Wildlife Conservation Society is based in New York, and has a $35 million per annum international programme, that is growing rapidly. Its greatest strengths have traditionally been in the conduct of long-term field research programmes in the rainforests of the Amazon, Congo Basin and South-East Asia. It has had a continuous presence in some sites for over twenty years. In recent years this has evolved into a greater investment of effort in implementing conservation programmes and dealing with the broader issues that this implies.

Over a six-month period, The Environment and Development Group (EDG) conducted a wide-ranging analysis of the requirements for growth in this global programme, including the needs for developing stronger technical support, administrative, training and public communication capabilities, as close as possible to its field programmes around the world.

In doing this, EDG’s team made several visits to New York, attended regional meetings in Bolivia and Thailand, and visited field programmes in Bolivia, Indonesia and the Rockies. As a result of this exercise, WCS is starting to implement a far-reaching process of re-structuring the way it supports its field programmes.