Wyss Foundation Joins German Government, Philanthropies to Launch Innovative Nature Fund

Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe, one of the sites receiving sustained support thanks to the Legacy Landscapes Fund | Photo Credit: Mike Beckner

Earlier today, The Wyss Foundation joined the German government and other major philanthropies to formally launch the Legacy Landscapes Fund (LLF), an innovative, private/public partnership that is mobilizing critically-needed resources to sustain conservation and management of some of the world’s most ecologically important landscapes.

To celebrate the news, the Wyss Foundation’s president, Molly McUsic, issued the following statement:

“If we are going to meet the scale of the challenges facing the natural world, it’s going to take mobilizing far more resources for the long-term stewardship of our planet’s lands, waters, and wildlife. Thank you to the German government, KFW, and partner foundations for building this innovative partnership. We can accomplish far more working collectively to safeguard the world’s most spectacular places than we ever would working separately.”

The Wyss Foundation’s investment into LLF is core to its broader goals under the Wyss Campaign for Nature, a 10-year, $1 billion commitment by Hansjörg Wyss – Chairman and Founder of the Wyss Foundation – to accelerate the pace and scale of conservation globally and to inspire others, including governments and other foundations, to marshal the resources needed to conserve and manage at least 30 percent of the planet’s lands and ocean by 2030. As Hansjörg Wyss, has written:

“Every one of us — citizens, philanthropists, business and government leaders — should be troubled by the enormous gap between how little of our natural world is currently protected and how much should be protected. It is a gap that we must urgently narrow, before our human footprint consumes the earth’s remaining wild places.”

To that end, the Wyss Foundation is providing LLF with $2 million per year for the next five years to support the Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe and North Luangwa National Park in Zambia ($10 million total). In turn, the Legacy Landscapes Fund, which is now a chartered foundation under German law that receives annual appropriations from BMZ (Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development) and KfW (Germany’s development bank), is agreeing to fund each site for the next 10 years at $1 million per year ($20 million total).  

Thus, for each park, the Wyss Foundation has committed $5 million over the next five years which is then matched by $10 million in German funding for the subsequent ten years – a 2:1 match. These resources ensure that each park has 15 years of guaranteed funding at $1 million per year, allowing governments, communities, and park managers to make informed management decisions, establish long-term priorities for conservation, and plan for the future knowing resources will be available.

The goal of Legacy Landscapes Fund is to eventually provide long-term financing for up to 30 of the world’s most important conservation landscapes. With today’s launch, seven landscapes, including the two parks being supported by the Wyss Foundation, are receiving funding through the LLF.  To learn more about the LLF, please visit https://legacylandscapes.org/.