"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead, American anthropologist, 1901-1978
Although they are asking people in Worcestershire to do this, I thought, what a brilliant idea - and so I wanted to let everyone know about it in the hope more people would follow suit wherever they are and pledge a patch for wildlife!
The Worcestershire Wildlife Trust is celebrating its 50th birthday and it now has 75+ nature reserves across Worcestershire. They describe them as "stepping stones in the landscape" - I love that description. And they are asking people to join the dogs so that wildlife can move through safely.
Wildlife all over the world need wildlife corridors to help them move from one place to another and these are vital to help them reach everything they need to survive and thrive.
Ideas of how you can pledge a patch are... (and no, you don't need a garden)...
Fill a window box with nectar and pollen rich plants
Attach a bug box to the wall of your house
Leave a 1m by 1m square of grass longer so that daisies can grow for the bees
Put up a nest box for birds
Plant a pollinator patch in an area of land - businesses could easily do that
Bring your neighbours together and ensure that hedgehogs can get from one garden to another easily
Join up with locals to turn an unused patch of land into an areas for butterflies
Create a small pond for frogs and toads
Offer to manage a local verge and fill it with wild flowers - just sow wildflowers around it and don't mow it so often
So there's plenty everyone can do wherever you are. 80 peole have already signed up to the Pledge a Patch initiative and you can find out more from their website here.
Both sites provide suitable habitat for wintering water birds such as the lapwing, golden plover, brent geese. And they are an integral part of a continuous network of designated coastal habitats extending north from the Thames Estuary to the Colne Estuary.
The East coast used to be full of vibrant wildlife but human claims for agriculture, together with the forces of nature (coastal erosion and rising sea levels) have taken their toll.
The new status of both sites have recognised the importance of new mudflats and saltmarsh to offset the losses over the last 400 years.
The Government sees this protection as a vital way to achieve their 25 year Environmental Plan, and the thing about protecting the aforesaid area is that it is next to the RSPB’s Wallasea Island Wild Coast project.
The RSPB is working with partners such as Defra and the Environment Agency to create more coastal habitat for people and nature.
Approximately 95 per cent of the area of our Sites of Special Scientific Interest and about 60 per cent of the total area of our most important or ‘priority’ wildlife habitats is now in good condition for wildlife or has management in place to restore its condition.
The Dee Estuary is bursting with wildlife, including hosting avocets, egrets, harriers, noisy redshanks, swallows and swifts.
Since 2011 the RSPB has established management on approximately 130,000 hectares of land to create new wildlife-rich habitat in the wider countryside.
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.
In the south west China’s Yunnan Province, environmental workers have opened some canteens for wild Asian elephants.
The aim is to reduce conflicts between the elephants and people.
Staff from the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve have created about 100 hectares of the elephant’s favourite food in three different sites. Bamboo and paper mulberry are on the menu.
On 5 July, a canteen had 20 Asian elephants who enjoyed their meal over two hours.
In Pu'er City, over 253 hectares of sugarcane, bananas and maize have been planted for the elephants.
The idea is that open-air canteens will help entice the elephants away from human settlements to prevent conflicts between the animals and people. The elephants can munch on food plants far away from the villages so they are less likely to come in to conflict with them. Fewer elephants are looking for food in the villages now.
The wild Asian elephants are endangered animals. In China their population has grown from over 170 in the 1990s to about 300 today. They live mainly in Yunnan.
Back in 1983, 3.2 million acres was established - the Iberá Natural Reserve in Corrientes province, North East Argentina. It created a tremendous opportunity for jaguar restoration.
And the Conservation Land Trust (CLT) was established there; it is ecologically restoring 370,000 acres of former cattle ranches to establish Argentina’s largest national park inside the larger Iberá reserve.
And CLT started a programme to reintroduce those large mammals that became extirpated inside Iberá during the XXth century.
After re-establishing the presence of giant anteaters and pampas deer there, jaguars are next.
The Tompkins Conservation team in Argentina consists of vets and scientists, community stakeholders and policy makers – and they’ve all collaborated with the goal of breeding a generation of jaguars that could be released into their natural habitat and survive in the wild on their own.
There are about 200 individuals in the wild in Argentina today, and about 15,000 jaguars roam the wild worldwide.
The goal is to restore a stable 100 jaguar population to Iberá National Park – these jaguar cubs are a great start.
For more information on this Jaguar programme, click here
