Do you love bears?

And more accurately, do you love spectacled bears? 

Then you may want to head off to You Tube on Tuesday 21 July to for a live talk with the Natural History Museum, London.

Find out how the Andes are inhabitated by the only surviving native bear species in South America - the spectacled bear.  Like so many species, it is under threat from habitat loss.

Find out about the efforts of the Natural History Museum scientists are protecting this animal and its home in Colombia - and how the Museum's collections can help. 

This is an on-line event and it's free, though you can donate to the Natural History Museum. 

 Find out more about Arctic Sea Ice Day with Polar Bears International
©Polar Bears International

Every Flower Counts!

That’s what bees think – so from 11^th to 19^th July, count the flowers on your lawn.  You can get your own Personal Nectar Score to find out how many bees it can feed!

Plantlife want to know what’s on your lawn.  Is your lawn giving a bee feast or a bee snack?

Every flower makes a difference because it provides essential nectar and pollen for bees, butterflies and other insects. 

The more wild flowers you’ve got in your lawn, the more nectar it will produce. 

If you took part in #NoMowMay or #LetItBloomJune or you haven’t mown at all this year, you’re more likely to have more flowers and tons more nectar! 

When everyone has submitted their results, Plantlife are going to calculate a National Nectar Index to show how all our lawns across Britain are helping to feed our vital pollinators.

They will also reveal the Top Ten Lawn Flowers and show us all how to increase the number of flowers in our lawns!

Why not set yourself a challenge:  see how many wild flowers you’ve got in your lawn this year and see what you can do to increase it next year? 

We've stopped mowing sections of our lawn and it's amazing how many more insects we've got - we're loving our own nature show!

Buzz off to Every Flower Counts

The Sumatran Orangutan Society have launched an appeal to help guides in Sumatra.

These guides normally take tourists through the national parks but because of COVID-19, the Indonesian government has closed the parks to tourists.  This means that the income supporting the guides’ families has vanished overnight.   Food security is tenuous. 

Visit the Sumatran Orangutan Society

These guides are normally at Bukit Lawang, Tangkahan and Ketambe – these sites are in the precious Leuser Ecosystem.  There’s no idea of when the parks will open up again.

So SOS launched an appeal to help the guides.   Thus far, over £6,000 has been raised.  All donations are going to Nature for Change and OIC and they have started to buy and distribute food supplies already.

You can donate here.

Find out more about SOS here

Rapanui have an unusual offer this weekend!

Their Buy One, Get One Tree offer has a twist – an under-the-sea twist.   They’ve teamed up with the Marine Conservation Society to help protect seagrass.

This underwater grass is crucial in the fight against climate change.

Why?  Well, seagrass absorbs 10% of the ocean’s carbon every year.

In fact, estimates are that seagrass can capture as much carbon per hectares as trees in UK woodlands.  And seagrass is vital for marine life.

Find out more about seagrass and why it matters here

Unfortunately, 35% of seagrasses worldwide have been lost or damaged over the last 40 years – so Rapanui want to help the Marine Conservation Society do something about it.

This weekend (until midnight Sunday 14 June 2020), every order on the Rapa store will help the Marine Conservation Society protect 5 square feet of this wonder-plant in the UK's seas!

Visit Rapanui here – they have a wonderful range of t-shirts, hoodies, jackets, bundles, shirts and more!

Visit the Marine Conservation Society here and donate directly to their seagrass appeal