ABSTRACT
The Society for the Preservation of the Wild Fauna (SPWF) arose out of the cooperation behind the 1900 Africa Convention and is the world’s oldest international wildlife conservation organization. The society is still prominent today over a century after its launch under the current title of Flora and Fauna International that it adopted in 1995. As is evident in the selected passage, it drew together many prominent and elite figures. The Earl Cromer referred to in the passage was the Governor-General of Sudan who the society successfully lobbied to reverse a decision to close a game reserve around the White Nile. The success of the SPWF was built on contacts in this way, including getting restrictions on the ivory trade agreed and combatting the prevailing argument that there was a public health cost to conserving game since such beasts often hosted the tsetse fly that spread sleeping sickness.
