The Worldwide Fund for Nature is exploring exciting new ways to get big business, green groups and even religions to help save the earth's endangered ecosystem.

It could be a general knowledge quiz question: what is the organisation with the panda logo that has the same acronym as the World Wrestling Federation? And most people around the world would get it right: WWF, the World Wide Fund for Nature. In North America the organisation is still known by its original name, World Wildlife Fund. The Switzerland-based WWF runs the largest private nature conservation programme globally. It works with more than 30 partner organisations, has a membership of nearly five million and is active in 100 countries. WWF has a threefold goal: biodiversity conservation, sustainable use of natural resources, and reduction of pollution.

There is no doubt that these are compelling priorities. There is a serious global spurt of species extinctions, rainforests and coral reefs are under grave threat, 1998 was the hottest year on record, the earth's population has crossed the six billion mark, the ozone hole is getting bigger. The WWF's own Living Planet Index concluded that the health of the planet as measured by changes in forest, marine and freshwater parameters declined by 30 percent in the last three decades.

Outgoing WWF president, Ruud Lubbers, who is in Kathmandu this week for the annual meeting of the organisation, told us that his organisation's ultimate goal is to stop and eventually reverse the accelerating degradation of the earth's natural environment. To do that, WWF needs to work closely with governments, civil society, religious groups and businesses. "But above all we have to work with people, so that people themselves feel that they benefit from nature conservation," says Lubbers. To this end, WWF has supported conservation education programmes in the world's environmental hot spots. WWF's lobbying with government and local partners has also brought about policy changes and impacts like the doubling of Nepal's rhino population to above 600 in the past 25 years (see page 11), the decision by India's Supreme Court to stop commercial shrimp farming in mangrove tracts, the setting up of a marine reserve around the Galapagos islands and the scrapping of two dam projects on Austria's wildest rivers.

"These successes would not have been possible without WWF's partner organisations and national offices," says WWF director general, Claude Martin, who is especially pleased with his organisation's efforts to get transnational companies to adopt greener policies. At the WWF annual meeting in Kathmandu, Martin presented the case study of how WWF worked with the US oil company Chevron to ensure that its oil prospecting work in Papua New Guinea would not irreversibly damage the fragile environment of the island which has 1,200 species of trees and 2,000 types of fern. "We got very worried because Chevron didn't have a very good track record, and oil exploration opens up areas for logging and other things. So we got in touch with them to start an integrated development programme for the Kikori Basin. There was a policy change in Chevron."

WWF also carefully tracks "greenwashing" by transnational companies that try to project a nature-friendly image while continuing their ecologically-harmful policies and practices. Martin says it is a good trend that companies like Shell and BP are now starting to take climate change seriously, and they are in the process of changing from oil companies to energy companies. Adds Lubbers: "Transnational companies have now realised that they are being scrutinised, so even when they come to developing countries they have to use their best practices."

One of the more exciting partnerships that WWF has struck is the one with the inter-denominational Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC) which tries to get faiths around the world to "gift" a conservation project to planet earth. Twenty-six of these gifts were presented to Britain's Prince Philip who officially received them as President Emeritus of WWF amidst a glittering ceremony in Bhaktapur on Wednesday. Says Martin: "With these gifts we reached out to up to five billion people represented by these faiths." Some of the gifts were: a ban on hunting of snow leopards in Mongolia by local Buddhists, the establishment of a National Biosphere Reserve in the heart of the Arabian peninsula, the Tengboche Monastery in Nepal playing a role in reviving traditional forest management practices, India's Jains reducing the use of toxic substances by getting Jain businessmen to be more ecologically-conscious, China's Taoists want to get their followers to stop using endangered species in traditional medicine. Other leaders at the Bhaktapur event were Jewish, Shinto, Sikh, Zoroastrian, Baha' i, and Christian.

Martin Palmer of ARC says: "All faiths have environmental teachings, what we saw in Bhaktapur with the 26 sacred gifts were these teachings becoming real." ARC was set up in 1986 in the Italian town of Assisi where WWF invited the world's various religions to take part in nature conservation. The Bhaktapur gathering was the first major meeting of ARC, and Palmer hopes the tradition of religious bodies giving sacred gifts to Earth will grow. For Nepal itself, this is a proud moment. Not only because Bhaktapur was chosen for the ceremony, but also because it is recognition by the world's foremost conservation organisation of this country's achievements in environmental protection.