Support life as the highest value on earth.
One belief has guided our work since 1977 — that protecting life must come first. Save the Bees is how we all keep the buzz going: students, bee lovers, and you.
Nearly fifty years earning trust for life.
United Earth Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 1977. Our work has earned international recognition — from a founding role in the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge (the only international wildlife refuge in North America) to honors for our part in the American Heritage River Initiative.
Today, our Save the Bees reporting is funded by the public — keeping the journalism factual and answerable only to the people and the life it serves.
Picking up where the science left off.
For years, the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources was home to the world-renowned Endangered Species UPDATE — the journal that brought the frontline data on extinction to researchers and the public alike. When it quietly ended in 2011, that vital window on the natural world closed.
We named our program the Endangered Species Report™ and anchored it at U-M Ann Arbor on purpose: to carry that legacy forward for a new generation and in a new medium. Ann Arbor is also a global communications center, linked to major research institutions worldwide — the natural hub for a movement built to grow from one campus to many.
“A generation ago, the frontline data on extinction lived on paper, curated by universities. When the ink dried and the money ran out, that vital window closed. We are picking up where the science left off — bringing the data out of the archives and back to the world.”
Allen Licari — a lifetime on the mission.
Allen Licari founded United Earth Fund in 1977 and has led its mission ever since. His commitment to life is literal as well as lived — a former EMT and American Heart Association CPR master trainer — and it has carried him from the Hopi and Four Corners strip-mining fight to a founding role in the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge, the only international wildlife refuge in North America.
To that mission he brings a communicator’s toolkit: an award-winning news director and a pioneer in interactive communications technology, he has spent a career learning how to move people to act. Save the Bees, built with the University of Michigan, is the fullest expression of that belief — that people who care about life, working together, can make the world a better place.
We’ve been right before.
Founded on one belief
United Earth Fund is established to support life as the highest value on earth.
A warning ahead of its time
A UEF student-and-faculty video pilot predicted the sixth mass extinction — 25 years before mainstream acknowledgment.
A refuge without borders
Co-founder of the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge — North America’s only international wildlife refuge.
The model already works
A five-year UEF pilot at UC Davis ran accredited classes and work-study positions with 30 volunteers — and produced a distributed radio environmental magazine.
The science behind the mission.
“I’m proud to endorse United Earth Fund’s Save the Bees initiative, with my PolliNation bee rescue protocol at the heart of its work. These dedicated experts understand what will be most impactful in saving the bees and educating the public.”
Dr. Terry L. Root
Senior Fellow Emerita, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment; a leading voice in climate-and-species science who led UEF’s 2001 student-and-faculty video pilot.
Melvin Claxton
Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist; co-designed UEF’s investigative reporting and student journalism training framework.
Advisory Board
Dr. John Hartig, Rick Simek, and the late Dr. Harry Stevens — alongside the students, volunteers, and faculty who carry the work forward.
Bees are where we start — not where we stop.
Save the Bees is a working model: students rescue a species, report the story, and build public awareness of what anyone can do to help. It’s a rescue effort and an ongoing awareness campaign in one.
Once the University of Michigan hub is running, more universities join — multiplying the rescue, the reporting, and the reach. From there, the same approach extends to other local and regional endangered species. The bees are the beginning of something built to grow.
Join us in supporting life.
Give, join a Bee-Team™, or help put the student-led daily Report on the air. Every contribution keeps the buzz going.