PRESS RELEASE: FISA and WWF Strategic Alliance

The signing took place in Switzerland between Judy Slatyer (COO) and Maria Boulos (Director Corporate Relations) from WWF International, together with Denis Oswald (President) and Matt Smith (Executive Director) representing FISA.

This alliance was announced earlier in the year, on the basis of a Letter of Intent which had been concluded in time for the start of the 2011 rowing season. By doing so, the Clean Water message could be placed on televised signage and backdrops at all seven World Rowing events, including the three Samsung World Rowing Cup regattas, the World Rowing Championships and European Championships, all internationally broadcast.  During the interim, the fine details of the alliance have been finalised and the short and long-term strategies determined.

Jochem Verberne, from WWF International commented that the signing of the contract represents the finalisation of the administrative phase and the start of the communication, education and action phases. He added, “We are convinced that the many rowing communities around the globe will appreciate the objectives of this alliance and will actively help us take action to protect their water, raise the awareness of other users around them and be recruited for other clean-up or awareness-building projects. In the first months of this partnership, we have seen local initiatives being proposed and already successfully implemented. Although we are in the process of activating the initiatives locally, we are also expecting FISA to lead by example”.

Matt Smith from FISA explained, “As the sport’s governing body, FISA will be making significant commitments to improve our own environmental policies, most importantly our guidelines for event bidding and event staging, but also activities such as becoming a greener office ourselves. We must improve the monitoring and evaluation of our actual performance to become leaders in sustainable event management. But that is just one part of this Alliance; the other parts are about communication, education and action. It is from these that the long-term benefits will be derived. We shall use all media, especially Social Media, to initiate awareness and discussion concerning the issues affecting Clean Water and we are already initiating local discussions between some of our national federations and the WWF offices in those same countries.”

WWF actively engages in strategic and innovative partnerships with organisations that they feel fit with their goals. They aim to help organisations reduce their ecological footprint and make a positive contribution to helping preserve the environment. In the case of FISA the partnership was a perfect fit in promoting clean water, which is one of the main priorities of WWF- protecting freshwater ecosystems.
About WWF:

WWF is the world’s largest and most respected independent nature conservation organisations, with more than 5 million supporters and a network active in more than 100 countries on all continents. Since its creation in 1961, it has maintained a constant record of success. Today, WWF runs about 1300 projects at any one time and employs more than 5400 people worldwide. WWF’s mission is to stop the degradation of the planet’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature.
WWF is working to protect freshwater ecosystems and improve water access, efficiency, and allocation for people and the environment – an essential component of saving most of WWF’s priority places and species and reducing the impact of humanity’s water footprint. For more information, please see www.panda.org/freshwater