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Environment
In 2008, environmental contributions totaled more than $9.0 million
, with more than $7.1 million supporting programs and communities abroad. Our investments focus on a few critical areas: conservation in a range of ecosystems, environmental education and outreach, and scientific research of environmental issues of global importance. Increasingly, we are focused on building capacity in local communities to maintain and protect the health of our natural world.
2008 marked the 13th anniversary of ExxonMobil Foundation’s establishment of the Save The Tiger Fund (STF) with non-profit partner National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Over the last 13 years, ExxonMobil has contributed more than $16 million to tiger conservation efforts, making ours the largest corporate commitment ever to save a species. With facilitating partners like World Wildlife Fund, Wildlife Conservation Society, Conservation International, WildAid, and Fauna and Flora International as well as local, grassroots NGOS, our investments reach well beyond tigers. Conserving wild tiger populations means fostering cooperation among government agencies, businesses and civil society and building the capacity for local solutions management. Through activities that support tiger habitat, we have also invested in major Asian river systems that provide transportion and drinking water to millions, and protected millions of acres of carbon-storing vegetated and forested land.
ExxonMobil also recognizes the connection between economic and environmental welfare. In Equatorial Guinea, we support the Bioko Biodiversity Protection Program, a partnership between Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA and the Universidad Nacional de Guinea Equatorial. In 2008, we provided $300,000 to a program that develops the skills of local bioscientists, maintains a research center in Equatorial Guinea, and employs local villagers in wildlife patrol and data collection. In Indonesia, we continue to support the Leuser International Foundation and its conservation of the Leuser Ecosystem, one of the globe’s biodiversity hotspots. In protecting this unique area, we have supported the conservation of all its contents – including the mountain ranges, volcanoes, peat swamps and lowland forests that are home to elephants, rhinos, orangutans and clouded leopards.
In the United States, we support conservation of marine and terrestrial areas through our partnerships with The Nature Conservancy, Land Trust Alliance, Ducks Unlimited, Resources First Foundation and the Wildlife Habitat Council.
