December 17, 2008

All-

Wanted to call your attention to the great news out of our Mekong program. Yesterday our report detailing the discovery over the past ten years of more than 1,000 species was picked up worldwide (see note below from Tom Dillon). Today at 12:30 p.m. ET our Mekong Director, Dekila Chungyalpa, will be interviewed on CNN - tune in if you can.

Best,
Carter

From: Tom Dillon

Hi Everyone,

I want to call your attention to a major WWF story getting great worldwide attention today. Yesterday, the Greater Mekong Program released a report documenting more than 1,000 species that have been discovered in this mega-biodiverse region in the past decade.

Our Mekong Director, Dekila Chungyalpa, will be talking live about this on CNN today at 12:30 Eastern Time (CNN, not Headline News). It is also being covered by CBS, National Geographic, NPR and other national media as well as close to 50 local TV stations. The CNN piece is the best online story: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/12/16/rat.mekong/index.html Yesterday it was CNN's most popular CNN story, with more people clicking on it than any other on CNN's website.

I was based in the Mekong when we launched the program there after WWF discovered the saola - just the fourth large mammal discovery of the 20th century. I continue to be amazed at the number of species that have been discovered in the region since and at the breadth of WWF's Mekong Program now.

These species discoveries are the main draw of today's media attention, but the story hits on all the main drivers we are addressing as well: climate change, mining, timber, dams. It ends stating our ambition to conserve 23M hectares of forest and FW habitat in the basin -- our Mekong Charter. This is a great example of WWF's local-to-global strategy. Kudos to Dekila Chungyalpa, Rebecca Ng, Lee Poston, March Wood and the Greater Mekong Program for bringing this attention to one of our 19 priority places.

Check out our website at http://www.worldwildlife.org/who/media/press/2008/WWFPresitem10990.html for the full story.

Best,

Tom

Tom Dillon
Sr. Vice President, Field Programs