What the world needs now
"It's shocking to think that in my lifetime we've already lost nearly half of the world's wildlife population, and our forests and oceans remain at risk"
Will Young
We were thrilled to team up with Universal Music and the singer Will Young to make the planet number one at Christmas. Will recorded a beautiful version of the Burt Bacharach classic ‘What The World Needs Now Is Love’ for us. The song is complemented by awe-inspiring visuals that highlight the fragility of our planet and the urgent need to protect it. The film also communicates some alarming facts about the decline in wildlife populations across the world. The combination is a powerful, emotional advert that engages people and encourages them to act.
I wish for you...
This year, as part of the Climate Coalition, we’ve joined forces with around 100 other organisations to call for action to protect the things we love from climate change. We know that together our voice is even stronger. We’ve united at events such as November’s global climate march, which more than 750,000 people took part in globally. More recently, the Climate Coalition produced this stunning film, written by former children’s laureate Michael Morpurgo and starring Jeremy Irons and Maxine Peake. It’s a powerful message from a grandfather to his granddaughter, calling for us to learn to love our planet.
Positive Partnerships
When businesses support our work, we can achieve even more positive impacts. For example, our long-standing partnership with HSBC has helped to transform some of the world’s most vital rivers and lakes. The people and wildlife that rely on them now have a brighter future. This thought-provoking film touches on some of that inspiring work: the effect we’ve had on communities who rely on the Yangtze river basin and its many lakes. We’ve educated more than 144,000 fisherman and farmers in the region on sustainable practices, protected 240,000 sq km of wetlands, and 30 million people in China now have water that’s sourced from cleaner lakes thanks to our work here since 2002.
Find out more about how we work with business at
Rallying Against Illegal Wildlife Trade
“Anything we can do to deter poachers is a positive step in the right direction”
Andy Murray, WWF global ambassador
We’re incredibly grateful that throughout the year, tennis ace Andy Murray has been championing our fight against the illegal trade in wildlife. Andy is a global ambassador for WWF. He’s well known for his love of dogs and is lending particular support to our sniffer dog programme in Nepal – including the training of two Belgian shepherd dogs there, called… Murray and Sears! The dogs can help wildlife rangers monitor and deter poaching. And they can help find guns and traps, track poachers and locate wildlife parts. Andy also helped us create some really engaging videos that encourage people to support our work.