Dedicated to the preservation and management of parks, protected areas and cultural sites.
By connecting knowledge and management, we support leaders on the frontlines of conservation.
COMMUNITY
CONNECTION
CONSERVATION
The George Wright Society champions stewardship of parks, protected areas, and cultural sites by connecting people, places, knowledge, and ideas. We are the only place-based conservation organization that is designed to be interdisciplinary from the ground up. By uniting people from many different backgrounds around a common passion for protecting Earth’s natural and cultural heritage, we create the collaboration needed to meet today’s greatest conservation challenges.
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Parks Stewardship Forum
The Interdisciplinary Journal
of Place-Based Conservation
New format, new dates:
February 11–12, 2021
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Upcoming GWS workshop
Today’s Top Parkwire Story
22 January 2021
Ivory trade still flourishing on eBay, study says
Two miniature sculptures sold on eBay in December 2020: a tiny egg with a chick hatching through the shell, and an intricately carved man in traditional Japanese dress with a rat perched on his shoulder. The egg sold for $195 and the figure for $1,345. But there’s a problem. Both objects are made from a yellowish-white material that has crisscrossing patterns characteristic of elephant ivory — a banned item on eBay.
“Yes, both are elephant ivory,” David Roberts, a wildlife trade expert and academic at Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) in Kent, U.K., told Mongabay in an email after reviewing the listings.
Inspired by George Meléndez Wright
George Meléndez Wright was born in San Francisco, CA and in 1930 became the first chief of the wildlife division of the U.S. National Park Service. Under his vision and leadership, each park started to survey and evaluate the status of wildlife and to identify urgent problems. As one of the first and only latino staff for the Park Service, he was a true pioneer in celebrating diversity and working together across disciplines for our wildlife and wild places.
The George Wright Society was founded in 1980 in his honor, to continue the legacy of forward thinking and applied solutions in an ever changing environment.