The Fund For Wild Nature is an environmental organization that gives financial support to grassroot

Grassroots

A grassroots movement is one driven by the politics of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it are natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures...

 projects and organizations that work for the protection of biodiversity and wilderness. The Fund works exclusively for projects in countries of North America. It has no endowment and is supported entirely by donations from individuals. Their support has helped foster the beginning of such groups as the Rainforest Action Network

Rainforest Action Network

Rainforest Action Network is an environmental organization based in San Francisco, California, USA. The organization was founded by Randy "Hurricane" Hayes and Mike Roselle in 1985, with the financial help of Fund for Wild Nature....

, Center for Biological Diversity

Center for Biological Diversity

The Center for Biological Diversity based in Tucson, Arizona, is a nonprofit membership organization with approximately 220,000 members and online activists, known for its work protecting endangered species through legal action and scientific petitions...

 and Ruckus Society

Ruckus Society

The Ruckus Society is a nonprofit organization that sponsors skill-sharing and direct action training camps for activists from impacted communities working on social justice, human rights, and environmental justice...

. They were founded in 1982 by members of the Earth First!

Earth First!

Earth First! is a radical environmental advocacy group that emerged in the Southwestern United States in 1979. It was co-founded on April 4th, 1980 by Dave Foreman, Mike Roselle, Howie Wolke, and less directly, Bart Koehler and Ron Kezar....

 organization, and their headquarters is in Portland

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

, Oregon

Oregon

Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

.

History

The Fund For Wild Nature was founded as the Earth First! Foundation in 1982 by Lance Christie, LaRue Christie, Abe Blank, Bill Bishop, Ken Sanders (Edward Abbey

Edward Abbey

Edward Paul Abbey was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views. His best-known works include the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which has been cited as an inspiration by radical environmental...

's friend), and Bruce Hayse. The current name was adopted in 1991. Among the groups that were initiated with the help of their support, we can find the Rainforest Action Network

Rainforest Action Network

Rainforest Action Network is an environmental organization based in San Francisco, California, USA. The organization was founded by Randy "Hurricane" Hayes and Mike Roselle in 1985, with the financial help of Fund for Wild Nature....

, the Center for Biological Diversity

Center for Biological Diversity

The Center for Biological Diversity based in Tucson, Arizona, is a nonprofit membership organization with approximately 220,000 members and online activists, known for its work protecting endangered species through legal action and scientific petitions...

, Sinapu, Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, Los Padres Forest Watch, Prairie Dog Coalition, and Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology.

Structure and aims

The Fund provides modest grants to grassroots organizations (i.e., those with annual budgets of less than $250,000). It funds project expenses, not general overhead. The Fund provides money for campaigns within the United States, Canada, and Mexico to conserve and restore native species and wild ecosystems, including actions to defend wilderness and biological diversity. The Funds supports grassroot projects for issues that are not given enough national attention, and would otherwise not be funded through mainstream sources. They believe in seeking alliences with related groups within the field to achieve systemic change. Historically, the Fund has supported actions for wildlife, wilderness, rivers and marine life, as well as actions against development, logging, grazing, mining, and other activities the Fund considers harmful.

The Fund bases their principles on the philosophy of biocentrism

Biocentrism (ethics)

Biocentrism , in a political and ecological sense, is an ethical point of view which extends inherent value to non-human species, ecosystems, and processes in nature - regardless of their sentience...

. They believe that human beings have become displaced from their natural environment, and see the importance of protecting wildlife as part of a fundamental struggle to reconnect to our origins and protect an healthy state of existence.