Conservation Influencers

International Primate Protection League

South Carolina, USA

The International Primate Protection League (IPPL) was founded in 1973 by Dr. Shirley McGreal, a British-born animal rights campaigner who was then based in Thailand. Its global mission is to counter primate abuse and international traffickers. It also operates a sanctuary for gibbons in the USA. From 1979 onward McGeal, as the boss of IPPL, became a regular attendee at CITES’ CoPs.

The International Primate Protection League first came to world attention in 1978, when it launched a global media-based protest against Dr. Christiaan Barnard, after a chimpanzee died during experimental heart transplant surgery that he supervised. Yet it was the results of such experiments that had earlier pioneered the first successful human-to-human open-heart surgery that was performed by Barnard in 1967.

Since 1978, IPPL has been involved in numerous lawsuits in cooperation with PETA, in which the claims made by the two parties have been thrown out of court because they were proven to be groundless. For example, in the case of International Primate Protection League v. Institute for Behavioral Research, a court found that IPPL lacked the standing to challenge a medical researcher’s compliance with the Animal Welfare Act.

Moreover, at CITES’ CoPs IPPL has falsely accused China and other South East Asian countries of ‘laundering’ wild long-tailed macaques as captive bred in order to obtain export licenses. And IPPL also used its concern for primates to intrude, especially in Madagascar, upon wider issues related to the conservation of three tree groups, ebonies, palissanders and rosewoods, by linking them to the conservation of Silky Sifaka (See here).

Leadership

Kerri Young is Office Administrator and Trish McCoy Sanctuary Manager.

Governance

Pam Mendosa is Chairwoman of the independent Board of Directors. There is also an advisory committee.

Finance

According to its form 990 for 2018, its gross receipts amounted to USD2,619,704 and its expenditure to USD1,096,700.

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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