By Town Crier Report

Wildlife Conservation Network makes its public debut Saturday, with its Wildlife Conservation Expo at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills.

The expo offers an unprecedented opportunity for the public to meet many of the world’s leading conservationists.

Peter Matthiessen, noted author-naturalist and winner of the National Book Award, will be the keynote speaker. He will be introduced by actress and conservation advocate Isabella Rossellini.

WCN is the first conservation organization to focus on funding, supporting and developing the next generation of “conservation entrepreneurs” - independent, innovative conservationists who are creating and implementing new strategies for saving endangered wildlife and habitats.

The organization was founded earlier this year by Peninsula residents Charles Knowles and Akiko Yamazaki. Knowles is a philanthropist with years of experience supporting and growing new conservation organizations. Yamazaki and her husband, Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang, are active supporters of a wide range of Bay Area educational and arts organizations.

Knowles and Yamazaki were joined by John Lukas, president of the International Rhino Foundation and director of the Florida-based White Oak Conservation Center, a leading facility for veterinary medicine and captive breeding of endangered species.

“WCN will act as a venture capital firm for emerging conservation projects - screening potential projects, doing due diligence, seeking donors and matching them with projects - but we’ll do it with no fees. One hundred percent of donor-designated contributions will go directly to the conservation projects,” Knowles said.

The Wildlife Conservation Expo will include presentations and discussions with the following:

Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants and author of “Among the Elephants”;

Rodney Jackson, founder of the Snow Leopard Conservancy;

Lukas, who also founded the Okapi Conservation Project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo;

Jim Sanderson, director of the Small Cat Conservation Project;

Laurie Marker, director of the Cheetah Conservation Fund;

Tom Foose, director of the International Rhino Foundation;

Claudio Sillero-Zubiri, founder and director of the Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Project;

Mitchell Kelly, award-winning cinematographer of “Wild Asia: At the Edge”;

Barbara and Rob Dicely of Leopards, Etc., an educational organization that uses live cats to bring the conservation message alive for audiences in California.

Douglas-Hamilton, who began as a conservation entrepreneur in 1966, was the first to call world attention to the devastation of the illegal ivory trade. He has been a leader in the fight to save elephants ever since.

Jackson was the first researcher to successfully radio-collar a snow leopard. He is a conservation entrepreneur exploring broader community involvement and commitment in conservation planning, as well as providing practical and immediate solutions to the conflicts between people and snow leopards.

Sanderson is a pioneer in the battle to save highly endangered small cat species around the world.

Marker took on the formidable challenge of convincing ranchers in Namibia that they could co-exist with cheetahs - and thus halted the precipitous decline of the country’s cheetah population.

Foose’s International Rhino Foundation uses research, captive breeding and anti-poaching security to protect rhinos endangered by the illegal rhino horn trade.

Sillero-Zubiri is working to save the most endangered species of dog in the world.

Kelly will discuss the challenges of filming endangered wildlife around the world and screen new film footage of snow leopard behavior from a soon-to-be-released documentary.

The Dicelys will showcase their feline “ambassadors,” including cheetahs and snow leopards.

For more information about the schedule of events, admission prices and directions to the Wildlife Conservation Expo, call (408) 354-4035 or logon to www.WildNet.org.

For more information about the Wildlife Conservation Expo or about WCN and its programs, call Antonia DeMatto at 327-0388 or e-mail her at toni@wildnet.org.