Our survival depends on caring for domestic animals and conserving global biodiversity.
“To advance the humane treatment and protection of domestic and wild animals by promoting human understanding, conservation and the prevention of cruelty.”
The Foundation for International Aid to Animals (FIAA) is a private, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that promotes humane and responsible treatment and training of domestic animals and advocates natural conservation of wild animals and global biodiversity. We believe that the relationship between people and the domesticated animals closest to them has long been an important part of human culture, and that our connection to nature is strengthened by improving and understanding those bonds.
We also believe that wild animals are integral to the biosphere and to our own connection to the earth, its history and its future, and that wildlife in its natural environments deserves to be protected. Our hope is that our work will help to better the lives of both humans and animals as interdependent inhabitants of our shared and increasingly stressed global environment.
FIAA began in 2001 supporting educational programs, animal rescue and population control in Chile, primarily focusing its work on street dogs and cats, responsible ownership and domestic animal care. FIAA then expanded to include humane and ecological issues involving other domestic animals. From the beginning, FIAA had observed the impact that abandoned domestic animals had on the environment, that feral and roaming domestic animals posed a serious threat to our wildlife through spreading contagious diseases and parasites, and impacting wild species populations through predation.
Today, FIAA is developing projects internationally in partnership with local groups in regions as varied as the Amazon, Pantanal, Sao Paulo (Brazil), Northern Kenya, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Mendoza (Argentina), Rapa Nui, Patagonia and different regions of Chile. Our work focuses on domestic animal health issues, sterilization operatives, sanctuaries and wildlife rescue centers. We also work with schools and universities creating talks and seminars on the importance of conservation of biodiversity.
Our organization is 100% volunteer. No member of the board, executive officer or representative receives a salary or fee for their work.
“Successful conservation needs to simultaneously educate people, restore wild and urban landscapes and reestablish healthy animal populations. We are finally coming to the understanding that the relationship between people, animals and environmental health is synergistic. As we build our cities and protect our wildlands, FIAA keeps this crucial relationship in focus. We finally have a conservation approach that recognizes the delicate inter-relationships between animals, people and place and understands that we need to actively exercise care. Bravo FIAA for bringing us to a new threshold of conservation that includes us all.
FIAA is helping those of us in the construction industry learn how to share the habitat with animals, both wild and domestic, by putting compassion at the center of design. Seeing their work, we become inspired to make places where humans can engage in strong support of the animals, both domestic and wild. Through FIAA’s holistic approach to both the protection of wild animals, the care of domesticated animals and the education of those who will care for them, we can have hope that our world may regain a healthy outcome.”
