Credit: DisneyAs Earth Month approaches, The Walt Disney Company is showcasing conservation and sustainability efforts worldwide, leading up to Earth Day on April 22. The Disney Conservation Fund (DCF) is supporting 25 organizations across 16 countries, bringing its total global conservation investment to over $141 million since 1995. For more than 30 years, DCF has worked to protect wildlife, restore ecosystems, and inspire environmental action. This year, it is spotlighting five grant recipients focused on protecting and rewilding over 120,000 square miles of habitat.
Yalmaz Siddiqui, vice president of environmental sustainability at Disney, stated that the DCF reflects the company’s commitment to meaningful, measurable actions for a healthier planet. He emphasized the importance of collaborating with local communities to ensure conservation efforts deliver real benefits to both people and wildlife.
Safeguarding the Heart of the Savanna
The African elephants guests encounter at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park help bring the story of conservation to life, with those powerful moments of connection extending far beyond Kilimanjaro Safaris through the Disney Conservation Fund, which supports organizations like Save the Elephants that are working to protect African elephants in the wild. With support from DCF this year, Save the Elephants is partnering with a community bordering Tsavo East National Park in Kenya and organizations across Africa to establish a Community Conservancy protecting a critical 12.5 square-mile corridor to enable elephants to move safely between protected areas, including through a critical railway underpass within the rapidly developing Tsavo Landscape.
The initiative will deliver tangible benefits to the local people, including employment opportunities, livelihood programs, and sustainable long-term human-elephant management strategies, helping this community see the value of conserving their land for wildlife and elephant migration and future security. This approach demonstrates how conservation can create economic opportunities for communities rather than restricting access to resources, with employment and livelihood programs providing alternatives to land uses that conflict with wildlife conservation while ensuring that local populations benefit directly from protecting elephant corridors.
Nighttime Pollinators with a Powerful Role
Bat Conservation International is helping protect threatened and endangered nectar-feeding bats across Mexico and the U.S. Southwest by restoring critical migratory pathways these species depend on, with the organization working over the next two years with landowner and organizational partners to implement sustainable agriculture practices, restore and reconnect eight key stopover sites spanning 675 miles, and plant nearly 140,000 native agave plants to create a connected “nectar corridor.” These climate-resilient habitats support important pollinators like the greater long-nosed bat, lesser long-nosed bat, and Mexican long-tongued bat while also strengthening land health and local livelihoods.
At Disney’s Animal Kingdom guests can encounter another type of bat which are flying foxes whose impressive wingspans and gentle movements often surprise and spark curiosity, with seeing these animals up close helping reveal an important truth that bats play a vital role in keeping ecosystems healthy as pollinators.
Keeping the Ocean in Balance
Sharks often surprise guests when they see them up close at The Seas with Nemo & Friends at EPCOT, and while sometimes misunderstood sharks are graceful powerful animals that play a critical role in maintaining healthy oceans with protecting sharks helping keep marine ecosystems in balance supporting life beneath the waves around the world. Through DCF those moments of discovery extend far beyond the aquarium as Ocean First Institute is advancing conservation of great hammerhead sharks which are one of the ocean’s most iconic and critically endangered species in the Florida Keys through research and education.
Using tools such as satellite tagging and remote underwater video systems, the team is working to better understand the marine corridors these sharks use and inspire stewardship for oceans globally, with the team working over the next two years to protect approximately 60 nautical miles of marine corridors within the Upper Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, including critical pathways connecting offshore reefs with inshore nursery areas.
Small Wings Far-Reaching Impact
Butterflies may be small; however, their impact is anything but, with Monarch Joint Venture restoring and connecting 15 miles of monarch butterfly habitat across important migratory routes in California’s Bay Area and Central Valley over the next two years by distributing and installing approximately 6,000 native plants and engaging participants from homeowners to farmers to students to establish community-led habitat corridors. During the EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival, guests can encounter monarch butterflies at Butterfly Landing presented by AdventHealth in World Nature, where hundreds of butterflies and educational displays illuminate their life cycle.
Tiny Primates Critical Protection
In the wild, cotton-top tamarins are among the most endangered primates on Earth, with Proyecto Tití and Wildlife Conservation Network this year extending protected areas for cotton-top tamarins by approximately 6 square miles, which is an important step toward a longer-term goal of building a 20-mile regional forest corridor between two critical areas. This work builds on a decades-long commitment to engaging Colombian communities in education programs, forest restoration, and sustainable agriculture practices to create a brighter future for this species and the people who share their home.
At Disney’s Animal Kingdom, guests are often captivated by the size, charm, and energy of these tiny primates, with watching cotton-top tamarins care for one another and move together as a family offering a powerful reminder that even the smallest animals play an essential role in healthy ecosystems and that conservation begins with connection.
How Disney Guests Can Contribute
Fun fact that Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park’s birthday is on Earth Day, making April 22 a particularly meaningful day to visit the park and learn about conservation efforts. If Disney guests are looking to help the conservation fund, they should visit on Earth Day when the park celebrates both its anniversary and Earth Day simultaneously, creating a special opportunity to engage with conservation programming and learn about ways to support wildlife protection efforts around the world.
If you cannot visit on Earth Day, be sure to ask cast members at Animal Kingdom how you can contribute to the conservation fund and help save the planet, as cast members throughout the park are trained to provide information about the Disney Conservation Fund and direct guests to resources for supporting conservation work. For a complete list of the most recent DCF grant recipients and more about Disney’s global commitment to conservation, visit disney.com/conservation to learn how Disney is extending a helping hand to foreign countries during these hard times.