Press Release

Gland, Switzerland - With over one billion stamps printed, and 413 issues by the end of October 2007, the sale of stamps from the WWF Conservation Stamp Collection has raised over 20 million Swiss francs in royalties and has become an important source of funding for WWF's conservation activities.

The WWF Conservation Stamp Collection is the largest thematic collection in the world. Since 1983, some 1500 different stamps, all produced by Groth AG of Unterägeri (Switzerland), have been issued in 212 countries.

The money from the sale of the stamps has helped fund a range of activities - from the conservation of endangered species, to helping forest and coastal dwelling communities improve their standards of living through sustainable use of their natural resources.

Each year, up to 18 different countries have issued stamps featuring their own threatened animals. More recently, Barbados featured the Queentriggerfish, Falkland Island the Caracara and Congo Kinshasa the Common Hippo.

Each stamp set includes four postcards illustrated with photographs of the species, four first day covers with sketches by well-known wildlife artists, and an illustrated text about the species written by scientists. Available in 10 languages, the text describes the species’ habitats, characteristics, behaviour, relationship with humans and other animals, as well as the main threats and protective measures taken for their conservation. In addition, albums are provided for easy storage of the collection.

At its Annual Conference in November 1998 in Interlaken (Switzerland), WWF awarded Hans Groth the Gold Panda Award, its highest environmental prize, in recognition of his dedication to the cause of the environment.

For the 25th Anniversary of the WWF Stamp Collection at GROTH AG, a Newsletter in “The Nature of Business” WWF International January 2007 has been published. Also an interesting article about the WWF Conservation Stamp Collection (in English, French, German and Spanish) appeared in UNION POSTALE issue 1/2002. Both texts are available under www.wwfstamp.com This website contains further information about the WWF Stamp Programme.