Omani cash for I.U.C.N.

Press, 16 October 1981, Page 4

Omani cash for I.U.C.N.

The Omani Government will grant the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources $160,000, to be paid, over the next three years. The announcement was made yesterday at the general assembly of the I.U.C.N. at the Christchurch Town Hall, by the Omani Minister of Communications, . (Mr Salim bin Nasir al bu Saidi) on behalf of the Sultan of Oman. ■; • Added to the grant of just under $360,000 made by the I.U.C.N.’s sister organisation, -the World Wildlife Fund, which is also payable over the:: next three years and announced earlier this week by the Fund’s director-gen-eral, Mr Charles de Haes, the money should go a long way to easing the I.U.C.N.’s deficit this year — about $500,000. The deficit had been caused by the preparation of the world conservation

strategy, released by the I.U.C.N. last year, and the move to. new headquarters in Switzerland, Mr de Haes said. The fund had been sympathetic to I.U.C.N.’s request for funds, but did not feel there was a point in making a contribution unless a solution was found to eliminate the rest of the deficit and to ensure that it did not recur.

Mr de haes said that the three-year grant would be payable only as long as the targets which the I.U.C.N. had set itself for reducing its deficit over this period were achieved. Part of this would be achieved by raising membership dues. In addition to the grant the fund would this year contribute one-third of the I.U.C.N. -secretariat budget. The I.U.C.N. had done itself, a disservice in the way in which it had presented its budget, since it had given the

impression that all or most of its secretariat budget represented “basic administration costs, he said.

"Whereas, in fact, the greater • proportion of the expenditure of the I.U.C.N.’s secretariat achieves, or helps achieve, conservation. It includes expenditure on commissions and on regional desks, and if the efforts of both of these are more attractively packaged, it will make the W.W.F.’s efforts at raising funds much easier,” Mr de Haes said. The I.U.C.N. has an annual budget of $2.3 million, which its director-general, Dr Lee Talbot has said is “ridiculous.” Dr Talbot said earlier this week that some of the nongovernmental members of the-I.U.C.N. had a bigger budget than the union. Last year the union’s finances had been so bad that the auditors Lad recommended that it be declared insolvent, but the backing of the World Wildlife Fund had saved it from dissolution.