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Because whales and dolphins play a critical ecological role, our mission is to ensure whale and dolphin populations survive and thrive as key contributors to the health of our shared planet. Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) is the leading global charity dedicated to the conservation and protection of whales and dolphins. Our vision of a world where every whale and dolphin is safe and free is not a noble gesture, but a necessary goal for a healthy planet on which humans and wildlife can survive and thrive. We defend these remarkable creatures against the many threats they face through campaigns, lobbying, advising governments, conservation projects, field research and rescue.

Vision: A healthy & thriving Severn River for present and future generations.Mission: We engage the local community with the Severn River and its tributaries through advocacy, education and restoration.Our programs focus areas:ADVOCATE – to build a broader and more diverse community of stewards to meet the growing needs of an expanding population, while conserving the Severn River’s health. EDUCATE - learners of all ages about one of the most biodiverse tracts of land, rivers, and trails, in the country, the Scenic Severn River and its watershed. RESTORE – Mother Nature’s water treatment plants – oysters and underwater grasses. With volunteers and partners we are re-establishing the processes necessary to support our River’s natural habitat.

The Worldwatch Institute is an independent research organization recognized by opinion leaders around the world for its accessible, fact-based analysis of critical global issues. Its mission is to generate and promote insights and ideas that empower decision makers to build an ecologically sustainable society that meets human needs. Worldwatch has catalyzed effective environmental decision making since 1974. The Institute's interdisciplinary research is based on the best available science and focuses on the challenges that climate change, resource degradation, and population growth pose for meeting human needs in the 21st century. Worldwatch seeks innovative solutions to intractable problems-emphasizing a blend of government leadership, private sector enterprise, and citizen action that can make a sustainable future a reality.

Lifeline Energy is a non-profit social enterprise that provides sustainable information and education access to vulnerable populations. We achieve this by designing, manufacturing and distributing solar and wind-up media players and radios for classroom and group listening. Since 1999, we have distributed more than 500,000 power independent radios to provide on-demand access to information and education, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa. Over the years we have received numerous awards including the Tech Museum of Innovation Award, a World Bank Development Marketplace Award and an Index: Design to Improve Life Award. In addition, our founder and CEO Kristine Pearson was named one of TIME magazine's Heroes of the Environment for 2007 and received the James C. Morgan Global Humanitarian Award in 2005.

Fundacion Nativo is a non-profit organization, located in Caracas (Venezuela), which is dedicated to the socioeconomic and sustainable development of indigenous communities, without having to damage their environment or abandon their cultural or religious beliefs. Always favoring gender equality and integration of different sexual options. Vision: A world in which there is no inequality between the indigenous population and the rest of society. Where the native population is not considered as animals, pets or the disposable object of the fashion of the moment. Mission: Empower indigenous communities by promoting the conservation of their culture, defending the right to land and the preservation of their natural resources, promoting sustainable economic development in gender equality and sexual orientation, favoring access to communication channels to leave the information isolation and giving them a voice before the institutions to demand their rights and denounce the abuses to which they are subjects of. Our history: In 2014, investigating for a documentary, we made a stop in the mining area of Las Claritas. There we went to a brothel where a bingo was being held. The place was full of miners attentive to the draw, something that surprised us because bingo always seemed an activity for older people ... Until we saw the prize ... depending on the sexual orientation of the miner, the prize was a child or Indigenous girl no older than 10 years old, who waited to meet the owner of their destination inside a hole dug in the floor of the premises. When you see something like this with your own eyes, it is impossible to remain indifferent to the problem. We realized that, in this market of basic instincts, we could do little to diminish the demand (the illegal miners come from many countries and for them the Indians are less than animals), but we could have some possibility of diminishing the offer if we helped the development of indigenous communities. And that's how the Fundacion Nativa was born.

The Connecticut Audubon Society conserves Connecticut’s environment through science-based education and advocacy focused on the state’s bird populations and habitats. Founded in 1898, the Connecticut Audubon Society operates nature facilities in Fairfield, Milford, Glastonbury, Pomfret, Hampton, and Sherman, a center in Old Lyme, and an EcoTravel office in Essex. Connecticut Audubon manages 20 wildlife sanctuaries encompassing almost 3,300 acres of open space in Connecticut, and educates over 200,000 children and adults annually. Connecticut Audubon is an independent organization, not affiliated with any national or governmental group. Connecticut Audubon Society’s scientists, educators, citizen scientists, and volunteers work to preserve birds and their environments in Connecticut. Our work includes sanctuary management, advocacy, environmental education and activities at our centers, scientific studies, and our annual Connecticut State of the Birds report.

Wildlife Response, Inc. (WRI) is dedicated to the preservation of wildlife through rehabilitation and education. One of the most universal challenges today in the battle to save wild things and wild places is how to bond people to the physical world in a powerful enough way to give them the motivation to want to protect and preserve it. It is especially important in our growing suburban and urban communities to increase significant associations connecting people and nature, especially where natural environments and natural experiences are less and less common. On a local level, the steady arrival of new residents to the Hampton Roads area is having a overwhelming impact on our wildlife and natural environment. As we accommodate this progression, it is essential that people who now call the Hampton Roads area home understand the sensitive balance of human and non-human populations, the affect we have on the natural environment, and the best ways in which we can coexist.

The CPFQ Child Sponsorship Program is designed to build bridges between the Canadian community and Palestinian children living under occupation or in refugee camps. Children enrolled in our program live under conditions of extreme poverty and unemployment. Many of them live in densely populated refugee camps. A suitable infrastructure is absent, seriously threatening the physical and mental health of residents. Many children suffer from serious health problems and disabilities. Due to financial hardship, many have to leave school at a very young age to help support their families. The severe restrictions on employment and movement make the future of these children very bleak. In addition to providing much needed financial assistance, the program helps maintain stable and rewarding relationships between each child and their sponsor. This simple message of hope can offset some of the effects of the chaotic and insecure conditions in which they live.

The Center for Renewable Energy and Appropriate Technology for the Environment (CREATE!) was established in 2008 to help rural populations in the developing world prepare for water, food, and fuel shortages resulting from the impact of climate change on their communities. CREATE! operates on the principle that all people have a right to water, food, shelter, energy, and the means to earn a living. We work with village populations to meet these needs through a culturally respectful, participatory process grounded in our belief that people must have a stake in their development and contribute towards solving their own problems. The cooperative groups in our beneficiary villages have already demonstrated the validity of this approach. CREATE! currently operates in Senegal. Senegal is representative of many Sub-Saharan African countries that are hardest hit by the increasingly disastrous effects of global climate change. CREATE! responds to the inter-connected crises generated by climate change with strategies that decrease dependence on fossil fuels, conserve natural resources, and increase the use of appropriate technologies. Our programs produce sustainable, human needs-based development at the village level while forging resilient and vibrant communities across rural Senegal. CREATE! seeks to face these challenges and assist rural Senegalese residents with small-scale, accessible, and "appropriate" technologies - technologies that are adapted to, and fit, their local conditions - and with human needs-based strategies that can both better their lives and build their capacity to meet these inter-connected challenges. CREATE! works in six villages in two regions of Senegal. One region is in the rural north of Senegal, centered around Linguere in the Louga Region, where CREATE! implements programs in the village of Ouarkhokh. The other region is in the central-west of Senegal, centered around Gossas in the Fatick Region. CREATE! implements program activities in five villages in this region. The total beneficiary population of the six villages is approximately 12,000 people, comprised of both agricultural and pastoral peoples. The average per capita annual income of the population in these villages is approximately $350 a year. In each of these villages, CREATE! staff work closely with local and traditional authorities, including village chiefs and imams, in addition to other community leaders, families, and public schools. CREATE! values the expertise and input of community members and strives to incorporate their knowledge and participation into each stage of our programs. As a registered NGO in Senegal, CREATE! works with government officials from the regional office of the Department of Water and Forestry. CREATE! also respects the Senegalese government's strategic development goals for rural communities. Although CREATE!'s administrative office is located in the United States, CREATE! relies on local Senegalese staff and volunteers to plan and implement successful development interventions. Barry Wheeler, CREATE! Founder and Executive Director, has spent the past 27 years working to alleviate suffering and to provide basic human needs for rural villagers, displaced persons, and refugees in several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. After serving in the Peace Corps for six years as an Improved Cook Stove and Appropriate Technology volunteer, trainer, and technical advisor in Togo, Barry earned a Master's degree in International Agriculture and Rural Development from Cornell University. Barry has served as Country Director for the American Refugee Committee's programs in Uganda, Sudan, and Rwanda; as a consultant for UNICEF and UNHCR; and as a team leader and training coordinator in local capacity building, renewable and appropriate technology, and sustainable rural development. CREATE! Chief Operations Officer Louise Ruhr has more than 30 years of private sector and nonprofit management experience and has spent the past eight years working with international NGOs, including the American Refugee Committee, to support women's cooperative groups in Rwanda and Senegal. CREATE! Country Director Omar Ndiaye Seck oversees program activities and conducts site visits in CREATE! communities. He also manages CREATE!'s finances and staff in Senegal. Omar closely collaborates with local and traditional authorities, community volunteers, and CREATE! staff to achieve both organizational and village goals.

Vaga Lume Association is a Brazilian non-profit organization founded in 2001 grounded in the belief that investing in people is the best way to transform a reality. Its mission is to create opportunities for cultural exchange by reading, writing and orality, valuing the empowerment of people and rural communities of the Brazilian Legal Amazon region. Vaga Lume works in 160 rural communities (indigenous, riverside, roadside, rural settlement people or quilombolas - Brazilian with African descent) of 23 municipalities in the Brazilian Legal Amazon region, which encompasses nine federal states (Acre, Amapa, Amazonas, Maranhao, Mato Grosso, Para, Rondonia, Roraima and Tocantins), occupies 59% of the Brazilian territory and has 20 million people (12% of the Brazilian population). Despite the fact that education and culture are basic social rights, protected by the Brazilian Constitution and under human rights international treaties ratified by Brazil, its access and implementation in the Amazon region are very limited. It is one of the poverty zones in Brazil - with a GDP per capita 30% lower than the national value - where 42% of the population survives with less than US$ 5.00 a day. Due to the outstanding impact of Vaga Lume's work in the region, the organization is recognized by many international and national awards such as the Juscelino Kubitschek Award of Merit for Regional Development in Latin America and the Caribbean given by the Inter-American Development Bank (2009); the Millennium Development Goals Award, conferred by the United Nations and the Brazilian government (2005); the Vivaleitura Award, from the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education (2008); and the Chico Mendes Environment Award, given by the Ministry of Environment (2006 and 2008). In 2011, Vaga Lume received its most important recognition: the 4th place at the Intercultural Innovation Award, conferred by United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and the BMW Group. As an awardee, in 2012, Vaga Lume was welcomed to the World Intercultural Facility for Innovation (WIFI), a network formed by the UNAOC, the BMW Group and the ten 2011 winners. Through this network, the UNAOC and the BMW Group challenged all winners to replicate and scale up their actions to promote intercultural dialogue and offered training, consultancy and institutional support to assist organizations to accomplish such results.

The American Chestnut Foundation has one simple goal: to restore the American chestnut to its native forests. Destroyed by an imported blight many consider the worst environmental disaster of the twentieth century, the American chestnut was virtually eliminated from the eastern hardwood forest between 1904 and 1940. With its loss, wildlife populations plummeted; never to return to former levels. With recent developments in genetics, there is promise that this critically important wildlife food source and timber tree will again become part of our natural heritage. To make this possibility a reality, a group of prominent scientists, in 1983, established the non-profit research-oriented American Chestnut Foundation (TACF). The Foundation's mission is simple: to restore the American chestnut as an integral part of the eastern forest ecosystem. TACF is employing traditional plant breeding techniques, backed by advanced research methods, to develop a blight resistant American chestnut tree. TACF is restoring a species - and in the process, creating a template for restoration of other tree and plant species.

Founded in 1981 in Seattle, WA, the Trust is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization whose mission is to protect the snow leopard and its mountain ecosystem through a balanced approach that addresses the needs of the local people and the environment. Snow leopards range over two million square kilometers of mountain in Central Asia, including the formidable Himalayas. Experts currently estimate as few as 3,500 exist in the wild, fewer than the world's tiger population. As an "umbrella" or keystone species, snow leopard conservation has far-reaching importance as it leads to the protection of hundreds of other plants and animals sharing the cat's ecosystem. The International Snow Leopard Trust is the oldest and largest organization focused solely on saving this important species. The Trust works nationally and internationally to raise awareness about endangered species, and to empower people living within snow leopard range to become stewards of their environment. To this end, the Trust conducts educational outreach, scientific research, and community-based conservation.