World Land Trust

World Land Trust was founded in 1989 as the Programme for Belize to raise money to privately buy land in Belize to protect tropical rain forests in collaboration with Massachusetts Audubon Society.[4] Later the organization changed its name to the World Wide Land Conservation Trust before becoming World Land Trust.[4] John Burton was chief executive for thirty years until 2019, when Jonathan Barnard took over.[3]

A U.S. partner organization, World Land Trust - US was rebranded as Rainforest Trust in 2013.[5] The Trust has since developed to help purchase and conserve land in over 20 countries worldwide and has an annual income of £4.9 million in 2019.[6]

The Trust's patrons are Sir David Attenborough, Steve Backshall, Chris Packham, and David Gower.[7] Other high-profile supporters of the Trust are Bill Oddie, Tony Hawks, Mark Carwardine, and Nick Baker.[8]

In 2014, World Land Trust held a "Controversial Conservation Debate: 'Killing Other Peoples’ Birds’" with Chris Packham in London.[9] It discussed the impact of sport hunting on wildlife and conservation.[10]

Projects include:

• Since 2007, World Land Trust and BIAZA have purchased Atlantic forest in Brazil to expand the Reserva Ecológica Guapiaçu (REGUA).[11]
• Purchase land that is now incorporated into the Buenaventura Reserve working with Fundacion de Conservacion Jocotoco.[12]
• Steve Backshall raised £50,000 for World Land Trust to purchase 481 acres of Chocó rainforest at the Las Tangaras Bird Reserve and protect the golden poison frog (Phyllobates terribilis) at the Rana Terribilis Amphibian Reserve in Colombia with Fundación ProAves.[13]
• Establish Indian Elephant Corridors in India, working with IFAW, the IUCN National Committee of the Netherlands, Elephant Family and Wildlife Trust of India.[14]
• Research in Iran on the Iranian subspecies of cheetah with the Iranian Cheetah Society.[15]
• World Land Trust raised £1 million to purchase land to connect two protected areas of rainforest and create an Orangutan corridor in Malaysian Borneo with LEAP and Hutan.[16]
• Purchase land at Sierra Gorda in Mexico with Grupo Ecológico Sierra Gorda.[17]
• Implementation of a REDD+ project in the Atlantic Forest of Paraguay with Guyra Paraguay.[18]
• Established the Philippine Reef & Rainforest Project on Danjugan Island.[19]
• Kites Hill Reserve, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom, which was donated to the Trust and is managed as a nature reserve.[20]
• The “Jungle for Jaguars" campaign aims to raise £600,000 for Corozal Sustainable Future Initiative to purchase and protect 8,154 acres in Belize.[21]

• Management of the conservatory Wyld Court (now The Living Rainforest) - a tropical forest exhibit, in Hampstead Norreys.[22]