Adopt Max the Bear!

International Animal Rescue have just launched their first brown bear adoption.

Wild bears are caught illegally every year – or they are trapped by poachers and they end up in small cages in restaurants and other venues across Armenia for so called public entertainment.

The bears are mentally and physically damaged by this existence – they are bored and frustrated; they have hardly any space to move around in.  Their food is unsuitable and insufficient; and they have no enrichment to amuse them.  They have no dignity and certainly no freedom.

Enter International Animal Rescue.  They launched a campaign in October 2017 alongside their Armenian partners to help save the suffering bears of Armenia and make a difference to bears who’ve been rescued.  

The bear centre rescue is run by their partners FPWC and it’s situated high in the mountains of Armenia.  The bears have the very highest standards of care, there – they have enrichment activities and can spend their days splashing about in pools and tucking into their favourite treats.  Of course, they want to return as many bears as they can to the wild – but sometimes that isn’t just possible and in those cases, they look after the bears for life.

 International Animal Rescue rescued Max in 2018.  He’s been locked up for 14 years – can you imagine?  He was in a tiny cage at a bus depot with his companion Minnie.

Normally, International Animal Rescue rescue Syrian brown bears, found in the wild in Armenia.

Max however is a male Siberian brown bear.  He’s half a ton in weight, so he’s the biggest bear International Animal Rescue have seen.

Max will never be able to go back into the wild.  He’s had too many years in captivity and he’s a non-native species of bear in Armenia.

But International Animal Rescue have committed to look after Max and ensure his days are full of treats, love and naps!

You can help Max (and his friends) by adopting him to support his ongoing care from 14p a day.

Your adoption will help in several ways:

• Pay for the lifetime care of Max and other bears like him
• Provide veterinary care to nurse bears back to health
• Maintain a peaceful and safe environment for the bears at our sanctuary
• Reintroduce bears back to the wild where possible

Visit International Animal rescue here to adopt Max today, and be a part of the effort to care for these bears!

Adopt Max today 

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

The World Land Trust reports that wildlife were putting themselves at risk in Guatemala because they were getting close to urban areas.

So their conservation partner FUNDAECO introduced human-made watering holes and they have proved to be invaluable for wildlife – several species have been filmed using them.

This initiative came after the Caribbean was hit by longer summers and animals got closer to towns. 

It only takes the team a few days to install each watering hole.  The water holes will now be an annual part conservation.  The plan is to roll these artificial water sources out on other reserves.

This means that wildlife will have access to water throughout the summer.

The first project the World Land Trust did with FUNDAECO was the purchase of 1,500 acres of lowland and inundated tropical forest.  They created a reserve at Laguna Grande.

Today, they are still buying and protecting some of the last remaining wetlands and tropical forests in Caribbean Guatemala.  Back in 2017, they started to create a new core reserve area in the Sierra Santa Cruz.  And WLT supports FUNDAECO through its Keepers of the Wild Appeal – that funds rangers on the reserves.

Find out about the work the World Land Trust is doing in Guatemala here

Find out about FUNDAECO here