Type registered charity Location Bristol, England | Registration no. 299450 Area served Global | |
Founded December 1987 (1987-12) Founder Sir Peter Scott
Christopher Parsons | ||
Wildscreen is a wildlife conservation charity based in Bristol, England.
Contents
The charity was founded in December 1987 from a trust which had operated since 1982. The founders included Sir Peter Scott and Christopher Parsons OBE, former Head of the BBC Natural History Unit, with the initial aim of encouraging and applauding excellence in the production of natural history films and television.
Wildscreen Film Festival
The Wildscreen Festival is the world’s leading international festival about nature films. It is held biennially in October in Bristol, England.
The festival began in 1982. In 1994, it merged with a biennial wildlife symposium, previously held in the neighbouring city of Bath. At Wildscreen Festival wildlife filmmakers and broadcasters from different parts of the world met to view the latest productions, discuss issues of mutual interest, exchange ideas and compete for the Panda Awards.
Over the years since then the festival has significantly expanded its scale and content and the charity has also enlarged its remit, including by launching Arkive, a centralised collection of films and photographs of endangered species.
Other Initiatives
A physical collection of images, footage and information was started, which went online in 2003. This resource has grown to include over 16,000 species profiles and 100,000 images and videos from over 7,500 of the world’s filmmakers, photographers and scientists. Arkive also contains topic pages that focus on various conservation issues, geographical regions and biological subjects. Arkive is used by over a million people around the world each month.
In May 2015 Wildscreen launched their newest initiative, Wildscreen Exchange. This conservation initiative provides conservation organisations with access to images, videos and expertise. Wildscreen Exchange contains over 28,000 images and many hours of video that are being used all over the world for campaigns, education resources, community outreach, fundraising and online..
Management
Wildscreen is a registered charity under English law, governed by a board of 17 independent trustees, chaired by Dick Emery OBE, former CEO of UKTV.
The chief executive is Richard Edwards, appointed in March 2011 to succeed Harriet Nimmo, who stepped down in January that year after 13 years with the charity, seven in the CEO role. Despite moving to South Africa, Nimmo retains a connection with the charity, in the advisory role of Wildscreen Strategic Director.
For the period April 2009 – March 2010 (which was a non-festival year for the biennial Wildscreen Festival), the charity's income was declared as £1,409,722, with expenditure of £1,417,362.
Wildscreen is a founder member of the Bristol Natural History Consortium, set up in 2004.