The 7th April is International Beaver Day.

Beavers can be quite controversial animals in the natural world;  personally I admire them for their incredible engineering skills.

About 400 years ago, beavers were hunted to extinction in the UK but they are being re-introduced (with caution) in the hope that they will help restore our wetlands to their natural state and also reduce  the impact of flooding.

Forestry England has produced this video showing why beavers build dams.   Their teeth are really quite something  (the beavers, not  Forestry England.)

Now, a number of the UK's Wildlife Trusts have beaver appeals and they are Dorset, Derbyshire, Devon, Cheshire, Cornwall and Kent.

The Wildlife Trust's website describe beavers as the engineers of the animal world and looking at the video above, it's easy to see why. 

To support the Wildlife Trust's conservation efforts, you could Adopt a Beaver  either for yourself or as a gift for a nature lover!  You could also buy them this Give a Dam t-shirt:

This t-shirt is made from 100% organic cotton 
and it's printed in the UK in a renewable energy powered factory.
£19.00   Find out more about it

Of course you should also take a look at the Beaver Trust.   I hope they won't mind me quoting their very exciting mission which is:

"to recover Britain’s waterways and landscapes through the rapid and widespread re-establishment of beaver wetlands across whole river catchments."

Their belief is that beavers are a practical, low-cost solution for long-term restoration.  They can help revesse the trend of extinction of British wildlife. You can see from their map where beavers are in the UK.

Furthermore, the Beaver Trust reports that in the US West, land managers and scientists hare using beaver dam analogs to do three things:

1. To heal damaged streams
2. To re-establish beaver populations
3. To help wildlife

And they've seen positive changes in 1 to 3 years in many cases!   Find out all about it here

Visit their website to have a good look round and see how you can  help.     

Green People sell organic beauty products for all the family.  I love their products and I also love the way they work with charities such as the Woodland Trust, Plantlife, the Marine Conservation Society.

And they've emailed to say they need help.

You see, their offices are located on the Knepp Rewilding Project.

And the project is an amazing example of nature restoration.   Boar, deer, beaver, storks, the nightingale and purple emperor butterfly all call it home.

But this biodiverse area is under threat.

There are plans for a housing development of 3,500 right next door – and the fear is that if this goes ahead, wildlife won’t have the freedom they need to roam about.

The new houses would effectively cut off the Knepp estate from both St Leonard’s and Ashdown forests.  The estate would, in short, be a wildlife land in a sea of housing.

The Buck Barn development would also increase the traffic and pollution at the Buck Barn Crossing where the A24 and A272 meet.   This is a busy junction already.  I would mention that another developer has put in plans for 10,000 homes just east of it. 

The Government keeps banging on about being environmentally friendly and how keen it is on being green, but that means nothing if it allows councils and developers to build on key wildlife corridors. 

Last year, white stork chicks hatched on the Knepp Rewilding Project for the first time in 600 years.

There must be another way to provide housing.  

Please sign the petition to stop the development at Buck Barn and to give wildlife the corridor it needs and deserves to survive and thrive.

Green People has a lovely range of sun care products for the summer!

In Defense of Animals say that wildlife specialists and conservationists are concerns that some of Montana’s most loved species such as grizzly bears, grey wolves nad bison are threatened with extinction.

For back in January, Montana’s legislature introduced ten bills which experts are saying is really a #waronwildlife.

Best estimates suggest there are about 5,000 wild bison, 1,000 grizzly bears and 850 wolves in Montana.  But, say In Defense of Animals, lawmakers are pushing through bills which are politically driven.     They will harm individual animals with unethical and old fashioned hunting practices.

Amongst other things, the new bills are proposing:

• To allow wolf snaring
• To lengthen the wolf trapping season by 30 days
• To reimburse hunters for time they spend hunting or trapping wolves
• To allow the killing of all wolves in the state until only 15 breeding pairs remain
• To stop the relocation of bears who go out of protected areas (so the bears will be killed if they wander off course)
• To allow hunting dogs to be used in the hunting of bear during the full span of their waking lives, outside of hibernation

To establish that hunting, fishing and trapping is the preferred manner of managing wild animal populations across the state (as opposed to scientific conservation based strategies)

So what can we do to help these bears, wolves and bison

Please join In Defense of Animals in calling onGov. Greg Gianforte to veto these bills to protect wild animals and ensure that Montana’s reputation as a wilderness and wildlife paradise stays intact.

In Defense of Animals says there are a number of things we can all do, including:

1. Call the Governor’s office to ask him to veto the current slate of anti-wilderness bills - details can be found here, and there are a number of points you can make, which In Defense of Animals list on their ways to help here

2. Comment on Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte's Facebook page and ask him to veto the current slate of anti-wildlife bills.

3. Comment to Secretary Pete Buttigieg and the U.S. Department of Transportation on Twitter - there's a message they have put together that you can tweet

4. 3. Please fill out the form here to email Gov. Greg Gianforte to implore him to veto these bills.

SumofUs have sent an email alert about the proposed plans French oil giant Total have for the Arctic.

They say that Total want to pump the equivalent of 535,000 barrels of oil a day from under the Arctic’s ice!  (Here is Total's webpage on preserving biodiversity.)

What’s more, the French government may back this plan and make it a reality.

French President Macron had called the project “reckless” and “incoherent” – but SumofUs say he is about to grant a €700 million loan guarantee to Total!

A global outcry would embarrass Macron – we need to raise a global public outcry and stop him becoming a Total Arctic Destroyer.

Tell Macron to withdraw from Total's deadly Arctic project and stick to his international climate commitments!

The Arctic is home to Indigenous communities like the Gwich'in, the Inuit, and the Sámi – and endangered species such as polar bears.

SumofUs say “Total's plan will assault the Arctic landscape and life with methane explosions, pollution and more deadly heat waves.”

We need to stop the French government financing this project and make other world leaders sit up and take notice.

Polar bears are just some of the species counting on us to do the right thing. 

Please sign this petition today and spread the word

Please give the Arctic and everyone living there a voice today and sign the petition to tell Macron to stop bankrolling oil and gas drilling in the Arctic.

The World Land Trust has launched the first appeal for this year and this one is in Eastern Africa.

The coastal forests there did cover an area larger than the UK – now, they would fit into half of Scotland.

There are 400 forest fragments from Somalia to Mozambique and biodiversity islands that are full of endemic life.

The Appeal Target:   £360,000

The Trust is working to raise £360,000.   With help from these donations, their partner the  Tanzania Forest Conservation Group (TFCG)  can save a crucial wildlife corridor.   Elephants, leopards, lions and other animals are counting on us all to save this land for them.

Roads are bringing cashew plantations closer and closer.  The animals need their wildlife corridor to be saved.

About the Rondo Appeal

The Rondo Plateau is a 900 metre table-top mountain.  It is a microclimate of misty forests, chameleons and bush baby primates whilst below it, big cats, butterflies and elephants roam. 

And with all our help, the Tanzania Forest Conservation Group is going to create a huge protected belt around this ancient landscape.

The donations will help safeguard a crucial wildlife corridor between the Rondo Forest Reserve and the Nyerere National Park.  49,000+acres (20,000 ha) of land will be protected.  The corridor will come in the form of 10 Village Land Forest Reserves, each under the stewardship of a village, and the Tanzania Forest Conservation Group will work with them closely.

Which animals will the appeal help? 

These animals are examples of those who need the Ronda route:

• Elephants who need space to roam and who need their migration routes,
• The African Lion and African leopard manage prey species – they must do this or animals such as the African Bush Pig would go unchecked, and devastate local farms.
• The lions in the area need the land between the forest and shrubland to hunt or they would become extinct in the area
• Leopards need forests so that they can store their kills up in the trees where other animals can’t get them.
• The dwarf galago is a tiny endangered primate, who lives in trees and who needs the connectivity the Ronda land will give it.
• The bearded pygmy chameleon is very vulnerable to habitat disruption – even the loss of a few trees could be one loss too many for some
• The chequered elephant shrew’s population is very fragmented because of habitat loss so the subspecies is under real pressure
  
  

We all need to act

Please help protect these animals by protecting their homes today – and please donate to the World Land Trust’s appeal