SOS - Save Our Species, is a global coalition initiated by the 3 founding partners IUCN, GEF and World Bank to build the biggest species conservation fund, supporting on-the-ground field conservation projects all over the world. SOS will combine resources and funding experience from the World Bank and GEF (Global Environment Facility), the authoritative science of IUCN and the resources and ingenuity of the private sector to create a mechanism that ensures sufficient funding goes to species conservation projects where and when it will have the most impact.

Save Our Species is managed through a secretariat housed within the IUCN for the allocation of funds. Grants are allocated according to strategic directions identified in consultation with IUCN`s Species Program and Species Survival Commission.

Doing nothing is watching our basic economic security being undermined, and our way of life – even our existence – being directly threatened. Doing nothing is simply not an option.

 The diversity of life on our planet is breathtaking, offering a huge variety of animals, fungi and plants. We sometimes forget that WE are PART of nature and depend on it for our very existence – now and in the future!

 Healthy biodiversity is essential to human wellbeing, sustainable development and poverty reduction. If we do nothing to stop the decline not only will plants and animals disappear forever but the very fabric of our society, our very existence, will be seriously threatened.

 We, as individuals, customers and businesses rely on this diversity of life to provide us with the food, fuel, medicine and other essentials we simply cannot live without.

Yet, as the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ shows, this rich diversity is disappearing at a frightening and accelerating rate, threatening the very basis of human economies, cultures and livelihoods. Thousands of animals and plants around the world face extinction with species currently disappearing at a rate up to 1,000 times higher than normal. 1 in 4 mammals, 1 in 3 amphibians, 1 in 3 corals, and 1 in 8 birds are at risk of extinction. This constitutes the biggest nature extinction crisis in the history of our earth (since the dinosaur extinction)!