1001 Club
The 1001 Club: A Nature Trust is a trust that helps fund the World Wide Fund for Nature. It was established in 1970 by the then head of the WWF, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, with help from Anton Rupert, a South African entrepreneur. They persuaded 1001 individuals to join the club, where each member would contribute US $10,000 to the trust. The resulting $10 million fund helps to towards the WWF's basic costs of administration.
The membership of the 1001 Club largely consists of managers of banks and multinationals from around the world. Examples from past and present include Sir Eric Drake of British Petroleum, Sir Val Duncan of Rio Tinto, Harry Frederick Oppenheimer and Sidney Spiro of Anglo-American Corporation, the British and French Rothschilds, Michel David-Weill of Lazard, Laurance and David Rockefeller, Henry Ford II, Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, Peter von Siemens, and Berthold Beitz of Krupp. Among the more remarkable members have been Salem bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's older half-brother; Mobutu Sese Seko, the dictator of Zaire; BCCI founder and president Agha Hasan Abedi; Louis Bloomfield and Tibor Rosembaum; and the controversial businessman Nelson Bunker Hunt.[1]
External Links
- WWF International: History
- Founding Patron of Peace Parks Foundation passes away
- ISGP, The 1001 Club: Bankers, intelligence agents, and raw materials executives striving for a sustainable future
- ISGP, 2010 confidential list of the WWF's 1001 Club: A present-day insight into the aristocracy of the world
