- The nonprofits Re:wild and Age of Union announced a new partnership to scale up their conservation efforts to focus on protecting critical ecosystems and developing creative projects like documentaries and art installations.
- Their first collaboration will be a million-dollar restoration project in Madagascar, where 90% of original forest cover has been destroyed by slash-and-burn agriculture and the overexploitation of natural resources.
- Leaders of both organizations said partnerships like this will be the key to scaling up conservation efforts and have a lasting impact on local communities.
Two of the conservation world’s most innovative organizations are joining forces to expand their impact — combining funding, grassroots activism and immersive storytelling to raise awareness and create action on the global climate crisis.
The nonprofits Re:wild and Age of Union say their conservation partnership will focus on protecting critical ecosystems and endangered species, and developing creative projects like documentaries and art installations.
“We need to work together, combine forces, and do the most that we can. We’re all bringing unique capabilities to the table,” Age of Union founder Dax Dasilva told Mongabay from the South by Southwest Convention in Austin, where the partnership was first announced.
Since its founding in 2020, Re:wild has been expanding a global network of over 500 partners in more than 80 countries, prioritizing on-the-ground relationships with companies, individuals, Indigenous communities and other conservation groups.
The organization is currently working to conserve more than 229 million hectares (565 million acres) of habitat and 265 threatened species, according to a press statement.
“One of the organizations I always really looked up to and hoped to partner with one day was Re:wild,” Dasilva said. “They seemed to be investing in the kind of grassroots, local and Indigenous-led conservation projects that I found inspiring. They’re an entrepreneurial, fast-moving organization that we definitely aspired to be like.”
Dasilva first came into contact with the Re:wild team in December 2022 while attending the UN Biodiversity Conference’s Business and Biodiversity Forum in Montreal. As he got to know the organization in other meetings and climate events, he said he was amazed at how similar their conservation approaches and business styles were, saying he thought they were “kindred spirits.”
Re:wild team members agreed. “He shares the same views around storytelling and conservation,” Re:wild CEO and co-founder Wes Sechrest said of Dasilva duiring a call with Mongabay. “How do we actually take the conservation narrative and package that into a story that’s compelling for everyone?”
Dasilva has been working in the tech world since he was 13 years old. In 2005, he founded the Canadian e-commerce company Lightspeed Commerce, which currently has a market cap of over $1.5 billion. Currently, Dasilva is still the CEO.
Age of Union, founded in 2021 with $40 million of Dasilva’s own money, has developed conservation projects across the globe, including Canada, Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Peru, Haiti and Trinidad. Many of the projects focus on habitat restoration.
The organization also funds films and art installations designed to raise awareness about the wonders of the natural world and overlooked ecological threats.
Its “The Black Hole Experience” is a 1,000-square-foot immersive exhibition that moves the viewer through time and space. Now entering its second season, it’s meant to generate a conversation among “the next generation of environmental changemakers” about the story of life on Earth, the organization’s website says.
One of its 2022 short documentaries, “Caught,” involved a partnership with Sea Shepherd, an ocean conservation NGO, and exposed the fact that thousands of dolphins were killed in fishing nets each year near France’s Atlantic coast. It ultimately helped pressure the government to ban fishing in parts of the Atlantic.
“How do we make sure that when we do these storytelling and communication [projects], that we’ve got an impact at the end?” Sechrest said. “That’s something both Dax and Re:wild have always shared.”
Under the new partnership, most of the Age of Union projects will finish out their funding commitments. Dasilva will maintain relationships in the countries where they already work and look for new project opportunities. Funds for Age of Union’s leatherback turtle habitat restoration project in Trinidad and forest conservation in Indonesia will be transferred to Re:wild control.
Age of Union will maintain its branding and website, and continue to look for high-impact conservation projects across the globe. But now it will have Re:wild’s support and network to help accelerate those efforts.
The two organizations’ first collaboration will be a million-dollar restoration project in Madagascar, where 90% of the original forest cover has been destroyed by slash-and-burn agriculture and the overexploitation of natural resources.
The first $200,000 will go to advancing the management of forests in Ranomafana National Park, as well as nearby forest fragments of Ambodimarohita, the Mahatsara forest and the lowland evergreen rainforest of Kianjavato, among others. It will also go towards working with local stakeholders to improve fundraising strategies and launch a funding mechanism called “The Madagascar Biodiversity Action Fund,” which will bolster recovery efforts for the country’s most threatened species, most notably numerous species of lemur.
Both organizations noted that what ultimately matters to them is not whose name is on a project but the impact made in local communities. Sechrest said collaboration between organizations has to be a key part of scaling up conservation in the years to come if there’s going to be a lasting change.
“It’s not about Age of Union, it’s not about Re:wild,” he said. “It’s actually about the folks on the front lines and their voices.”
Banner image: Dasilva and Re:wild Chief Conservation Officer Russ Mittermeier in Madagascar. Photo courtesy of Re:wild.
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