Category: Business helps wildlife

1. The Lion's Share Fund takes off with a big roar.....

   Posted on 10:00am Friday 10th Aug 2018

   Let’s ROAR for wildlife! On World Lion Day (the 10th August), it’s great to announce a really exciting piece of news for wildlife conservation. There’s a really fantastic opportunity for business to make a difference and have a real impact on wildlife. Drum roll please for….. The Lion’s Share Fund! You may have heard of The Lion’s Share.  If you haven’t, let me tell you more.   It’s an initiative which is aiming to transform the lives of animals around the world by asking advertisers to contribute a percentage of their media spend to conservation and animal welfare projects. I am really excited by this initiative.  The hope is that $100 million a year will be raised within 3 years.   The money will be invested in a range of animal conservation and animal welfare programmes, to be implemented by the UN and civil society organisations.  The Lion’s Share is working to contribute to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, which are aiming to end poverty and project the planet.  Goal 14, Life Underwater and Goal 15, Live on Land, involve supporting animals and helping to conserve their key habitat.  The UNDP (that’s the United Nations Development Programme) will host the fund.   A joint steering committee will take decisions on priority programmes. Money raised will go into creative, game-changing solutions which focus on achieving real impact for the animals and their habitats. Ambitious for sure - but if the top 10 advertisers alone were to participate, this would bring in a staggering $47m each year alone! Partners in the fund will contribute 0.5% of their media spent to the fund for every advert they use which has an animal in it.  And cartoon animals will count as well.  So if your company has an ad with a cartoon animal in it, they can participate! Mars is the first advertising partner.  It will sit on the executive and steering committees of The Lion’s Share and encourage other businesses to get involved. Worldwide advertising network BBDO and leading measurement and data analytics company Nielsen are also involved.  BBDO is contributing the benefit of its experience in advertising, whilst Nielsen will ensure that companies are contributing correctly. The Lion’s Share Fund has a website, and a very helpful FAQ page.  This answers a number of questions which spring to mind – how can we be sure the money goes to where it should, for instance.  (Nielsen will watch that side of things like a hawk.) And 93% of the funds raised will go to the animals that need it.   Rob Galluzzo, founder of FINCH, initiated the idea with Christopher Nelius, a film director.   Galluzzo says that 9 out of 10 of the most popular animals seen in commercials are endangered or threatened and they don’t always get the support they deserve.    FINCH have partnered with Clemenger BBDO to bring this initiative to life. The fund was launched in Cannes  at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, by UNDP Goodwill Ambassador and actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who said quite rightly that it is our responsibility as people to safeguard all life on our planet. Coster-Waldau plays Jamie Lannister in the Games of Thrones. So how can you help? Well, if I see an advert with an animal in it, I'm going to let the advertising company know about the The Lion’s Shares Fund.  It was only launched recently in June 2018, so they may not know of it yet.

    

2. T-shirts to help plant trees

   Posted on 9:00pm Wednesday 8th Aug 2018

   I've got to say, I just love Ecosia.   They're a search engine and I use it a lot to have a good rummage around the internet. It's a simple formula - you search, they plant trees and it doesn't cost you a penny :-) Ecosia uses 100% of its profits to plant trees where they're needed most.  So far over 34 million trees have been planted and Ecosia are aiming to plant one BILLION.   It's a journey I'm really to help with, and it's so good to see that many people are joining in as well.  So I was really pleased to discover that Ecosia now have an online shop and you can buy things like t-shirts, tops, jumpers and hoodies.  Their products are made from organic cotton and they're printed in the UK in a renewable energy powered factory.   And best of all - All profits from their organic apparel go directly towards one of Ecosia’s reforestation projects.   I've ordered one of their t-shirts - this one below - for 21.50 euros, plus postage and packaging.  Ecosia have a range of them.   Click on the t-shirt below to see their online shop!    Buying and wearing one of their t-shirts or other clothing items will be a great way to pass the message of the importance of trees on and give people an immediate and very easy way to help :-)

    

3. Global Tiger Day is 29 July - and the World Bank is helping to protect tigers

   Posted on 11:00am Sunday 29th Jul 2018

   Did you know that the World Bank is involved in tiger conservation? Who would have thought that all those financiers had a passion for our stripy four pawed friends? Back in 2008, the World Bank joined the Global Environment Facility, the Smithsonian Institution, Save the Tiger Fund and the International Tiger Coalition (which represents over 40 non-government organisations.  And the Global Tiger Initiative was launched.   It’s led by the 13 tiger range countries. In November 2010, leaders of these tiger range countries got together in St Petersburg in Russia.   At this International Tiger Forum, they adopted the St Petersburg Declation on Tiger Conservation.  And they endorced the Global Tiger Recovery Programme. The goal of this programme was to double the number of wild tigers across their area by 2022.  This would take the number of tigers from 3,200 to over 7,000. Tiger Initiative Progress has been made in many tiger range countries: A 2 week hands-on training for over 800 wildlife conservation professionals was launched.  These are from national parks and protected areas in South East Asia.  The idea is that they share best practice which could help all the tiger range countries.  What’s worked to increase the number of tigers?  What hasn’t? In India, population numbers of tigers have gone up just a whisker over 30% from 2010 to 2015 Nepal has done even better, with a 60% increase in tiger numbers between 2009 and 2012. Crucially, livelihoods provided under the World Bank/GEF India Ecodevelopment Project led to a group of poachers giving up the practice in the Periyar Tiger Reserve, Kerala. The Bangladesh Forest Department did a census of Bengal tigers, using the data they got to monitor the size and density of tiger populations in the Bangladesh Sundarbans. 30 Bangladesh forestry department officials undertook a certificate training course on wildlife management at the Wildlife Institute of India. Over 800 forest department officials have had in-country training. 34 subprojects have been implemented on habitat improvement, eco-tourism development and human-wildlife conflict mitigation. So what challenges lie ahead for tigers??  Threats to Habitats and Connectivity will get worse with rapid infrastructure development and the investment in extractive industries Poaching and Wildlife Crime Control, especially to monitor trends. Capacity Building and making sure there are enough resources to boost current efforts and also to develop national centres of excellence. Scientific Monitoring – results must be monitored so that the right interventions can be made. An example is pinpointing poaching corridors around the world. Eliminating the demand for tiger products. . Rebuilding Tiger Populations – it is vital to share current experience and knowledge on how to rebuild tiger populations. You can find out more here from the jaws of the World Bank itself We need our message to reach out across the globe:  tigers are worth much more alive than dead. Actor Harrison Ford

    

4. TUI Group Launch a new Global TUI Turtle Aid Programme

   Posted on 8:00pm Wednesday 4th Jul 2018

   Travel group TUI is running a programme to protect turtles.  The travel group now has a target to save one million new-born turtles by 2020. The TUI Turtle Aid programme has been created to protect the welfare of one million new-born turtles by 2020. It is working with local organisations in Cape Verde, Turkey and Greece  -‘Project Biodiversity’ and BIOS.CV on the islands of Sal and Boa Vista, Archelon in Greece and DEKAMER in Turkey. The project is expected to expand to other countries in the months ahead. The project will pioneer innovative research and protection methods to help safeguard the endangered global sea turtle population. Experts estimate that only one in a thousand baby turtles survives to adulthood, and the projects TUI is supporting is aiming to protect turtle nests on beaches and increase hatchling survival rates. Out of the 7 species of marine turtle, 6 are considered critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable. Threats to turtles: Suffocation because they’ve ingested plastic bags; poachers; irresponsible beach use which leads to the destruction of turtles nests killing of hatchlings coastal development climate change illegal trade Turtles in Cape Verde The third largest loggerhead nesting populations in the world resides here. Five of the seven existing marine turtle species are in the Cape Verdean waters.  The plan is to engage with the local community and local stakeholders.  Local tour guides are taught about best practices and they give advice to visitors to help them holiday responsibly. Hotel partner involvement is vital to foster responsible beach use and waste management, and sustainable outings for tourist. Turtles in Greece  Conservationists will work with local companies and the tourism industry on Crete anda in the Peloponnese to implement management measures on loggerhead nesting beaches.  It is hoped that 60,000 loggerhead hatchlings will be born every year. Turtles in Turkey On Turkish beaches there are efforts to involve national and regional government, local businesses and visitors in the turtle-protection activities. A rescue centre will help care for injured turtles along the coast.  The partnership will enable DEKAMER to develop international research and conservation porjects, including the satellite tracking of turtles, the sex ratio estimate of turtles under global warming and more. Well done, TUI!   Let's hope this really expands to other turtle sites.

    

5. Oh to be wealthy!

   Posted on 8:00pm Tuesday 27th Mar 2018

   It would be the dream of my life to make or win tons of money and be able to give it all to wildlife conservation and reforestation! In late March 2018, philanthropists, governments and corporate leaders from Europe, China, the US and Africa pledged over $6 million to protect wildlife habitats at the end of an important conservation summit. The Kavango-Zambezi Trans frontier Conservation Area borders Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.  It’s home to over 220,000 elephants – and yet parts of this ecosystem are now under huge pressure from poachers.  Forest elephants in Central Africa also suffer from high levels of killing. Space for Giants is an international conservation organisation.  It’s just co-hosted the Giants Club Summit, with Botswana’s Tlhokomela Trust. The Giants Club has come together and galvanised new money for fast action.   So what did the Giants Club countries – Botswana, Gabon, Kenya and Uganda (plus other KAZA nations Angola, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe) – achieve? The Giants Club will work with national wildlife services and partner organisations to nominate people for the Ranger Award Programme of the Paradise Foundation.   The award raises awareness about threats to Africa’s wildlife and the essential role that rangers play on the front line in conservation.  Working together will mean more candidates will be reached. A US$2 million grant given by the EU will be implemented by Space for Giants and the Tlhokomela Trust to train and mentor wildlife rangers sharing operational intelligence and resources across the border region It will boost legal deterrants against poaching by making investigations and prosecutions stronger across the five countries. The Giants Club aims to protect half of Africa’s elephants and their landscapes by 2020 by uniting political will, technical expertise and financial power to achieve its goal. Founding members are the presidents of Uganda, Gabon, Kenya and the Tlhokomela Trust.   415,000 elephants live in these areas – over half of Africa’s remaining elephants.  The Giants Club’s members include financiers, international philanthropists and key influencers such as celebrities.   Conservation scientists are the technical advisors.  The summit brings people together to hear innovative ideas on how to protect elephants and their landscapes and it then negotiates finance and secures political will to increase the reach of the ideas. Kenyan based Space for Giants works to protect Africa’s elephants from immediate threats such as poaching.  It works to secure their habitats in landscapes which are under increasing pressures.    Space for Giants aims: To develop and deliver anti-poaching intiatives to reduce the problems arising where elephants people live alongside each other, and to provide education and training.