Conservation Influencers

ADM Capital Foundation

Hong Kong, China

The charitable organisation ADM Capital Foundation was launched in 2006 by ADM Capital, a Hong Kong-based investment firm established in 1998, which manages assets worth USD1.6 billion. ADM Capital’s co-founder Robert Appleby has an MA in Zoology and a BA in Zoology and Anthropology from Oxford University, England. He spent 13 years at Lehman Brothers, and was also formerly Managing Director of the Asian Fixed Income Division at Credit Agricole Indosuez.

The remit of ADM Capital Foundation (ADMCF) is two-fold. First supporting children at risk. Second, on the conservation front, ADMCF donates money for research purposes and works with its partners on five issues: marine ecology, water security, air quality, wildlife trade and forestry conservation finance.

ADMCF executive team hosts The Global Initiative to End Wildlife Crime (GIEWC) alliance chaired by John Scanlon AO, former Secretary General of CITES. Also sitting on the GIEWC’s steering committee are the Born Free Foundation, Global Environmental Institute, the International Conservation Caucus Foundation (ICCF), and the Food and Land Use Coalition (represented by Systemiq).

In 2019, ADMCF co-founded the Hong Kong Shark Foundation (HKSF) with Fundación Colombia Azul. ADMCF’s 2019 annual report says that HKSF’s purpose is to ‘undertake research into the species composition of low-value shark fins in Hong Kong markets’. The objective, says the same report, is ‘to make recommendations for policy reform in relation to seizure and forfeiture of shark fins’. Its research findings are meant to highlight, the report says, ‘recommendations for shark listings at CITES COP-19’.

Furthermore, in 2019 ADMCF funded The Pangolin Reports, an international network of journalists, working on a series of reports that document the poaching, smuggling, and consumption of pangolins in Africa, Europe, and Asia.

Leader

The CEO is Lisa Genasci, former Associated Press journalist.

Governance

Self-governing.

Finances

According to its 2019 annual report, total contributions from ADM Capital and Investing Partners were USD3.07m (2018: USD3.10m), of which ADM Capital contributed USD1.97m. ADMCF also facilitated USD1.01m in donations to third party organisations.

About the directory

Conservation Influencers is a searchable directory of the animal activist, environmental and ecological lobby. It examines the history, mission, methodology and reputation of NGOs to assess their impact on the global conservation cause.

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Franz Weber Foundation

From 1990 until 2015, Franz Weber Foundation (FFW) managed the Fazao-Malfakassa National Park in Togo, which was, according to an in-depth investigation by Duke University, ‘established by forcing the local communities off their land and without taking into consideration their point of view’. That same study cited convincing evidence from reports published in 1990, confirming that competition for land use was already ‘creating conflict between the local communities and park managers’. In 2015 Togo refused to renew FFW’s contract because, the report says, ‘local communities were still excluded from the management of the natural resources of their land’ and FFW had ‘failed to fulfil its contract’. Franz Weber Foundation plays a major role within CITES because it funds and manages from Switzerland the African Elephant Coalition (AEC), which represents 32 African range states, some of which have barely any elephants and others none at all. Contrary to the wishes of the range states in Southern Africa, which manage most of the world’s wild elephant populations, the AEC at CITES’ CoPs repeatedly tables proposals to put all of the world’s elephants in appendix I. And the AEC uses its voting power to keep in place prohibitions on ivory sales and all other trade in elephant-related derivatives, including skins and hair, which Southern African nations wish to legalise.

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