WWF has been working on nature conservation for 60 years, alongside communities around the world. For us, healthy ecosystems are deeply linked to peoples' lives, livelihoods, and well-being. We believe that sustainable management of natural resources can only be achieved by partnering with Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Understanding how our activities affect the relationship between local people and their environment allows us to identify, avoid and mitigate any adverse environmental and social impacts of our work, and most importantly, enables us to focus on the needs and aspirations of local people as a foundation on which our conservation programmes are built.
WWF recognizes that respect for rights is at the heart of sustainable development. Guided by our organizational values of courage, integrity, respect, and collaboration, the Statements of Principles encapsulate our commitments to respect and promote human rights, foster gender equality, and uphold the rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Environmental and Social Safeguards Framework (ESSF), which includes nine Safeguards, supports the Principles by helping us to live up to our social and human rights commitments in relation to our place-based work.
The Statements of Principles (SoP) apply to all of WWF’s work. For situations where WWF engages in on-the-ground conservation, including activities implemented through partners, the Environmental and Social Safeguards Framework (ESSF) is applied.
Learn more about how we work, our Principles, and our Safeguards on the following pages. The complete SoP and ESSF package is also available to download here.
