The conservation charity WWF-UK has said it was “disappointed” to find its headquarters targeted by Extinction Rebellion protesters.
The XR youth group was joined yesterday by activists from WTF WWF, a group that claims the charity has “participated in the evictions of hundreds of thousands of indigenous peoples from their ancestral homeland, for purposes of conservation”.
The charity said safeguarding communities was at the “heart of its work”.
But the XR Youth Cambridge group accused it of acting in the “interests of its ecocidal corporate donors”.
WWF in Woking pic.twitter.com/LiZ8ww6FvR
— WokingXR (@WokingXr) August 31, 2021
Images shared on Twitter show more than a dozen protestors sitting near the entrance to the charity’s headquarters in Woking. Some were wearing panda masks and holding signs that appeared to be covered in blood.
A WWF spokesperson said: “We value dialogue and collaboration on these complex issues but find the actions taken by this campaign group at our UK headquarters today disappointing.
“We share the same ambition to protect our world, tackle climate change and ensure a future where people and nature thrive.
“Communities are at the heart of our work and as a global organisation we will continue to strengthen how we embed human rights into nature conservation everywhere we work, including in the most challenging areas of the world, to safeguard communities and the nature upon which they depend.”
It marks the beginning of a second week of Extinction Rebellion protests across the UK, which saw protestors glued to railings inside the Science Museum on Sunday in protest against the oil company Shell’s sponsorship of an exhibit about greenhouse gases.