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WELCOME
Overview and Mission
One of only thirty-four “biodiversity hotspots” in the world, the magnificent Caucasus region is teeming with unique life forms that are extremely threatened by habitat destruction and poaching. Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia—South Caucasus countries that were home to some of the world's earliest civilizations—are rapidly modernizing following independence from the Soviet Union. While this change benefits society at large, it threatens the region's pristine nature and is leaving many impoverished rural areas behind.
The Caucasus Nature Fund (CNF) was established to help conserve the unique flora, fauna and landscapes of this spectacular region for its people, our world and future generations. Our mission is to protect and strengthen the existing network of national parks and nature reserves in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia—so that the region’s people and indigenous species both thrive. Our goal is to assure adequate long-term funding and effective management for these protected areas by 2020—conserving nature, but also providing economic opportunity for neighboring communities.
CNF's symbol is the splendid, but critically endangered Caucasus leopard, which now numbers only 1,500 in the world. Of these, amazingly, about 40 roam on the border of Europe in the South Caucasus.
Your support helps protect nature in one of the world's most uniquely endowed regions and promotes sustainable rural development as it transforms economically.
Director's Welcome
Dear Friends,
I came to the work of conserving nature in the South Caucasus—as with most things in my life—through a combination of the forces of circumstance, curiosity and calling. Circumstance saw my life move eastward over a long journey from its middle-west/western American beginnings. Curiosity and calling, I think, were rooted in my first experiences as a teenager in America's great national parks, of which I had visited more than a dozen by the age of twenty-one. When I was ready to embark on a second career, and presented with the prospect of supporting national parks in the Caucasus, something clicked. Within a few weeks on the job I saw firsthand that, unbeknownst to me—and to most of us—a wilderness as magnificent and diverse as
America's West exists on Europe's eastern rim.
The Caucasus wilderness is surrounded by a myriad of fascinating and ancient cultures. As struggling, newly independent states in the post-Soviet space, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia each has a unique story and is worthy of support and encouragement. And while the region's politics are complex, the environment is a rare field of nascent cooperation.
As we have built our organization over more than three years now, we have taken important first steps to support the preservation—and as appropriate, the development—of this magnificent wilderness. You will glean from these pages, however, that most of the work is still in front of us.
Fortunately, the combination of circumstance, curiosity and calling that led me here has long since bloomed into passion. I look forward to continuing to address the challenges for the benefit of the region and its future, but also for the rest of Europe, Central Asia and beyond. Please accept my personal welcome to the wild and wonderful world of Caucasus nature!
Yours,
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David Morrison
Photo Credits