Big Cat Conservation: A Global Alliance

Dear Donor,

Our mission is to save the apex cats from extinction and to ultimately save the earth’s ecosystems by bridging Indigenous and Western sciences to develop new, radical conservation methods.

Why It’s Critical now more than ever—Indigenous prophesies understood the critical times we are now experiencing. Habitat destruction, poaching, and destruction of native traditional values have brought the big cats to the brink of extinction. Without these culturally central, sacred animals, entire ecosystems will die.

Alone, neither science nor indigenous knowledge can stop the extinction of snow leopards, lions, tigers, and jaguars. Through the Global Alliance for Big Cat Conservation, we are working with Western science to find new ways of conservation.

In June, WISN partnered with a Mexican-based organization called Naturalia. The Mexican government is only doing so much. This organization, working with local communities in Northwestern Mexico, is purchasing and establishing private protected lands for Jaguar conservation. While they have the conservation expertise needed for such a project, WISN offers expertise in bridging the cultural, indigenous perspective with Western science in an effort to create new forms of conservation that aren’t only based in one realm.

Naturalia and a WISN representative also attended a conference in Mexico in June—the National Alliance for Jaguar Conservation hosted in Cozumel. While the majority of the attendees were from Mexico, others from Central and South America were also in attendance, all joined by a combined mission of wanting to create strategies for saving this endangered big cat, integral to their ecosystems as well as to the cultures who have been intrinsically involved with Jaguars for thousands of years.

We will be planning to meet with the conservationists of Naturalia within the next six months and our hope is that together, we can develop new ways and strategies of creating a corridor of protection for these beloved cats that extends from Brazil through Central America.

Donors, we give much heartfelt gratitude for your support for our ongoing conservation efforts and we will continue to keep you updated of our progress. Please consider sharing our work with friends, family and colleagues so that we can continue.