"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
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.
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.
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.
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.