On April 4 2019 the UK Charity Commission opened a formal inquiry into allegations that the UK branch of the World-Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) may have been complicit in violence perpetrated against indigenous people overseas. WWF, famous for its panda logo, is one of the biggest International NGOs operating in the field of nature conservation, so this inquiry is significant in and of itself. However it also raises much wider issues concerning NGO compliance with international human rights standards, and how to promote more accountability as NGOs grow in size and influence on the global stage.
In March 2019, BuzzFeed News reported that WWF-UK may have equipped and worked directly with anti-poaching squads that have been accused of beating, torturing, sexually assaulting and murdering indigenous people in national parks across six countries in Asia and Africa between 2002 and 2016. The evidence gathered to document these allegations came from over 100 interviews conducted with human rights victims and from documentary sources such as leaked confidential memos, internal budgets and emails discussing the purchase of weapons.
