Mark Yates, WSPA's new disaster management director.

February 8, 2006

The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) is pleased to announce the appointment of Mark Yates as Disaster Management Director.

Yates was formerly a Major with the British Army and has experience in risk management, contingency planning, emergency procedures and training and organizational development.  As an international security expert, Yates has been deployed in humanitarian and peace keeping operations around the world. He now heads a team of international veterinarians and reports to WSPA's Director of Operations, Philip Russell.

Major General Peter Davies, Director General of WSPA, said: "This appointment helps strengthen our operation at an exciting time for WSPA as it moves to consolidate its position as the global co-ordinator of disaster management where animals are almost always inevitably involved."

For more than 25 years WSPA has worked with the animal victims of disasters, and is often the first, and sometimes the only organization that will go to the heart of a disaster to save animals.

This aspect of WSPA's work can be traced back to a landmark project in 1964 when WSPA staff directed the successful rescue and relocation of almost 10,000 animals in Suriname, South America, when 600 square miles of rain forest was purposely flooded during the construction of a hydroelectric dam.

In one of the biggest animal relocations ever undertaken, these animals were rescued and placed into a nature reserve. The project, 'Operation Gwamba', marked the first of countless disaster relief missions for WSPA.

In the past eighteen months alone, WSPA has gone to the aid of animals following the tsunami in Asia, floods in India and Romania, hurricanes in the US, Central America and Mexico, volcanic eruption in El Salvador and the earthquake in Pakistan. In addition to deploying disaster relief teams, WSPA has also implemented numerous long-term recovery projects to assist in affected areas.