Category: Business helps wildlife

1. Conservation benefits from ecotourism payments for more wildlife sightings in Laos

   Posted on 8:00pm Thursday 8th Mar 2018

   A project in a protected area in Laos established a connection between higher payments for wildlife sightings and improved protections for wildlife. During the 4 year study, sightings of common wildlife went up by over 60%.  The payments were funded by entry fees, paid by tourists, and were put into village development funds – these would finance projects such as school construction and healthcare.  The project was carried out with the Wildlife Conservation Society and Foundations of Success.  It shows that linking cash payments with results such as the number of animals seen could be sufficient to discourage practices which are detrimental to wildlife such as hunting.  This is an important direct link, and it’s believed to be a key to success. Wildlife managers and scientists set up a scheme to pay villages on the edge of the protected are based on the species and number of animals that tourists saw when they visited the park. The park is home to animals such as sambar deer, macaques and deer.   Unfortunately, a demand for wildlife parts, and access to weapons, led to a surge in illegal hunting even in this protected area. The villages’ development funds got a set amount of money for every tourist visiting the park.  But if certain animals were spotted, the funds would receive a bonus.  So a civet or porcupine would get little more than $1 whilst a tiger spot would have meant $225.  (No tigers were spotted during the research period.) If anyone from the communities was caught breaking the law, the community was penalised by the project.  By the end of the study, there were 63% more sightings of the common animals (or evidence of them, such as their tracks) than at the start. The research wanted to measure how effective incentives to protect wildlife could be at changing their behaviour.   The researchers estimate that it did.   The authors argue that the paper the project produced is laying out a method for measuring the impacts of other projects such as this. Laos travel guide from Lonely Planet

    

2. Lacoste produces limited-edition polo shirts for Save our Species campaign

   Posted on 7:00pm Wednesday 7th Mar 2018

   Lacoste produced a line-up of polo shirts with the images of 10 endangered species, replacing its iconic crocodile logo. The 1,175 shirts have sold out, but the good thing is that the campaign brought attention to the Save our Species campaign.   The number of shirts corresponded to the remaining population sizes of each endangered animal in the wild, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.    The 10 species represented and numbers of shirts produced were: Vaquita (Gulf of California porposie) - 30 Burmese roofed turtle - 40 Northern sportive lemur - 50 Javan rhino - 67 Cao-vit gibbon (ape) - 150 Kakapo (parrot) - 157 California condor - 231 Saola (herbivore) - 250 Sumatran tiger - 350 Anegada ground iguana - 450   The shirts were launched during Paris Fashion Week, and the proceeds went to the IUCN. The good news is that you can still donate to the Save our Species campaign here.

    

3. Hotel Cafe Royal in London supports Born Free

   Posted on 8:00am Thursday 18th Jan 2018

   I do love receiving Born Free's magazine, Wildlife Times.   There is always lots of interesting news and information in it, and amongst the pages to delve into is their "Business Friends" page. So I was very interested and delighted to read that the Hotel Cafe Royal in London made Born Free their charity partner to celebrate the festive season. Their fundrasiing activities included a voluntary £1 donation on all guest bills during the period, and every child who stayed on the 25th December received an Adopt a Polar Bear gift pack. Adopt a Polar Bear from Born Free here Apart from raising funds, this must have been a great way to raise awareness amongst guests and hotel staff of the vital work Born Free does. The Born Free Foundation is an international wildlife charity.  It works around the world to stop  stop individual wild animal suffering and protect threatened species in the wild.  Actors Bill Travers MBE and Virginia McKenna OBE founded the charity, whilst their son Will Travers OBE is the charity's President. Thank you, Hotel Cafe Royal!  It's good to see business working to help wildlife.  They also hosted an evening with Sir David Attenborough back in November 2017, which involved discussion followed by dinner.  For more information on Born Free, visit their website If you want to adopt an animal (which would make a great gift for an animal lover), click here.  They have a wide range of animals to adopt, from big cats to pangolins!

    

4. Iceland supermarket aims to be plastic free across own label range

   Posted on 8:00pm Tuesday 16th Jan 2018

   In the middle of all the news about plastic, Iceland has announced that it is working to be plastic free across its own label range by 2023. It's going to use technology to create a range of packaging of paper and pulp trays, along with paper bags, which are recyclable via domestic waste collection or in-store recycling facilities. Iceland has removed plastic disposable straws from its own label range already - and its new food ranges will have paper-based as opposed to plastic food trays. I think this is an important move.  The Plastics Market Situation Report in the spring of 2016 said that one million tonnes of plastic are generated by supermarkets in the UK every year. And it looks like Iceland will have a lot of consumer support.   In a survey of 5,000 consumers by OnePoll back in December 2017, there was a clear interest from the public in reducing plastic. 80% of those surveyed said they would  endorse a supermarket's move to go plastic free 91% said they would be more likely to encourage friends and family to shop there  Nearly 68% think other supermarkets should follow Iceland's lead. Plastic entering the world's oceans not only puts the world's marine life at risk;  it also enters the food chain through the sea food we eat.    We need to stop the rot and reduce our use of plastic before it's too late.   Iceland are making a good start - so what will other supermarkets do to follow suit?

    

5. Big cat tourism in South America can help jaguars

   Posted on 2:00pm Wednesday 19th Jul 2017

   There's some interesting research come from the University of East Anglia about big cat tourism. The overall message is that if we visit to see the jaguars, we will help them. Every year, thousands of tourists flock to the Pantanal, an area which spans Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay.  They want to see the big cat - the jaguar, who can be pretty elusive. The Pantanal is widely considered to be the best place to see jaguars in the wild.  Most tourists come to see jaguars, the Giant Otter, Anaconda, Marsh Deer, Giant Anteaters and water birds.   The World Land Trust is based in the UK, and its partner, Guyra Paraguay, manage a 52,000 acre reserve in north-eastern Paraguay.  It runs the Three Giants Biological Station on the reserve.   The reserve, by the way, is named after the Giant Otter, Giant Anteater and the Giant Armadillo who are present around the station, which tourists can visit.  Most tourists want to see jaguars;  animal tracking marks such as footprints are often seen.   Even though Jaguar sightings are rare, they are frequently caught on trail cameras. Responsible Travel list a number of wildlife holidays in Brazil ©Responsible Travel The jaguar is also at odds with local farmers, for killing their livestock and who consequently resent this big cat.  Some farmers even go so far as to hire bounty hunters to kill off problem cats. A research team from UEA, the Federal University of Mato Grosso, and Panthera, the cat conservation group, looked at the human-wildlife conflict.  They studied the area of Porto Jofre.  Here, ecotourism lodges and working cattle ranches work side by side.  Researchers discovered that the annual revenues gained from watching jaguar tour packages were more than US$6.8 million.  However, in the same area, the damage to livestock was US$121,500. Furthermore, the researchers interviewed ecotourists in the area.  98% would be willing to pay an extra fee to compensate ranches for the cattle they lost to jaguars.  A considerable 80% were willing to give 6% of the tour package costs.   Professor Peres said: “The discrepancy between the financial benefits and costs of retaining jaguars provides a huge window of opportunity for the conservation of this flagship cat and many other species of the increasingly embattled Brazilian Pantanal.” In short, there is monetary value in keeping a good number of jaguars in the Pantenal. Best practice in cattle herd management can also help reduce losses to farmers and ranchers. And tourists can help by looking to select tourism operators that work with local people to benefit the community and reduce any human-wildlife conflict.   Interestingly, the Snow Leopard Trust has set up a compensation scheme to help those farmers who livestock are killed by snow leopards, and also to help the farmers better manage their herds.  And it seems to be working.  I just feel sorry for the livestock. Read the full study from the University of East Anglia here