Conservationist, Scholar, WLT Chief Executive Officer John A Burton
Every since he can remember John has always been passionate about wildlife, be it birdwatching with friends or rearing ‘rescued’ animals, and on leaving school he joined the staff of the Natural History Museum in London where he worked as an Assistant information Officer. He left the Natural History Museum in 1969 to pursue a freelance career initially as a natural history writer and journalist, but soon moved into conservation. With an extensive background in both journalism and conservation, John Burton has worked across many high profile international environmental organisations over the last 30 years, including Friends of the Earth and as chief executive of Fauna and Flora International. He set up the first TRAFFIC offices for IUCN, has been involved with the Wildlife Trade Monitoring Unit and was founding chairman of the Bat Conservation Trust.
John has also been a regular columnist with New Scientist, assistant editor of Animals magazine (now BBC Wildlife) and, in particular, a natural history author specialising in field guides including guides to European Mammals, North American Mammals and European Reptiles and Amphibians. John has also written six children’s books and edited several multi-author works including the National Trust Book of British Wildlife, Owls of the World and the Atlas of Endangered Species. He has also written several books on garden wildlife. He has written or edited over 40 books.
As a consultant he has worked for a wide range of government, intergovernment and commercial agencies, including USAID, the World Bank, CITES, DFID, HarperCollins, Wade Furniture Ltd, and English Nature. He regularly carries out consultancy particularly relating to endangered species listings (utilising one of the foremost collections of Red Data Books), and recently has specialised in training conservationists with particular respect to fundraising for land purchase, and also establishing small NGOs.
In the 1970s and 1980s John was a regular broadcaster, and this included being a presenter of several UK television series including Countrysearch, and with Johnny Morris in Animal Magic; he has also made regular broadcasts on the BBC World Service. Working with the Wildscreen Trust he carried out the feasibility study which ultimately led to the creation of ARKive in Bristol. ARKive is the Noah’s Ark for the 21st century, bringing together the world’s finest wildlife films, photographs and sound recordings to create vivid, fact-backed, multi media portraits of plants and animals that are available via its free website. www.arkive.org In 1989 John co-founded the Programme for Belize, which was later to become World Land Trust and has been its CEO since its foundation. Programme for Belize was established to protect 110,000 acre of tropical forest which was about to be bought to make way for agriculture. The funds were successfully raised and Programme for Belize is now an independent NGO with its HQ in Belize City. John and the WLT Trustees moved on with the same formula for conservation: raising funds to buy land for ownership and management by overseas partner NGOs. Over the last 19 years WLT has gone on to fund land purchase and sustainable activities in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, India, Mexico, Paraguay and the Philippines as well as assisting conservation activities in other parts of the world.
In 2005, John was appointed a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Biology of the University of East Anglia (Norwich), in recognition of the WLT’s work with its students. The Diploma course in Conservation and Project Administration is a collaboration between the University of East Anglia, in Norwich (UK) and the World Land Trust. In 2005 John was appointed to the Editorial Statutory Board of BBC Wildlife Magazine, and has been a Trustee of the BBC Wildlife Fund. In 2011 John was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from University Campus Suffolk (UCS).
John has now been Chief Executive of the World Land Trust for 29 years and during that time has worked with the WLT board and staff to raise funds to purchase and protect more than 600,000 acres of critically threatened tropical forest and other vital habitats which would be lost had the Trust not been able to step in. WLT works with 24 overseas project partner Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in whom the ownership of the land saved is ultimately vested. They create permanent nature reserves for the benefit of their biodiversity. Funds are raised from individuals, groups, corporate supporters and Trusts.
www.worldlandtrust.org
