What links gorillas and chocolate?

If you ever needed a reason to stop yourself before you buy chocolate, here’s one. 

In Nigeria, 96 percent of the country's forests are gone.  In the south east, the forests in Cross River State are still home to gorillas.

In 2017, over 16,000 hectares of rivers in the Cross River State were destroyed.  How?

• Deforestation
• Illegal logging
• Palm oil plantations
• The production of charcoal

Cocoa plantations are encroaching on protected forests.  Our demand for chocolate is driving the devastation of chocolates.

The Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana are the world leaders in cocoa production. Nearly all of Côte d’Ivoire’s protected areas have been plundered.  Ghana holds the world record for its rate of deforestation in 2018.

What will happen in Nigeria?  Nigeria is the third largest cocoa exporter in the world.

Gorilla habitat is shrinking day by day.  The gorillas have less and less habitat to call home as their forests are destroyed by humans.

Most chocolate makers, say Rainforest Rescue, buy all the cocoa they can get without asking any questions.  It is very difficult for consumers to find out if chocolate they buy was produced in a sustainable way.

Environmentalists are working to get the EU to regulate the market – but gorillas need help NOW.

HELP GORILLAS NOW!

The Governor of Cross River State could do the most to help these beautiful animals.  He’s Ben Ayade and Rainforest Rescue have a petition asking him to strengthen the protection of his state’s forests. 

Please sign this petition here.

Update 2023:  Unfortunately Nikela is no longer running but there are lots of elephant charities you can look to help here.

Here’s a great way to get involved and to help reduce the conflict between elephants and people.

Sponsor a bee hive!

In fact, you can get your name – or theirs – on a beehive and help save elephants. 

For a 29 year old called Moses who was deeply passionate about wildlife conservation and rescuing animals, determined that human-wildlife conflict was the most pressing problem in his home area of Tanzania.

Elephants from nearby reserves were entering farmlands and causing considerable damanage, destroying crops. 

A solution to the elephants destroying crops was to install 20 bee hive fences along a border next to the Arusha National Park.  

Moses founded and sorted out a NGO (Alert for Endangered Wildlife Species or AFeWiS). 

Placing bee hives strategically along the perimeters of farmland surprisingly keeps elephants at bay.  Elephants are afraid of bees, you see,

Each beehive costs $50.

Enter Nikela, run by Margrit and Russ. It’s a small US based non-profit organization. And its mission is to “to help people protecting nature, especially doing wildlife conservation.  Nikela helps those protecting and preserving endangered African wildlife species.”

So far they have given over $40,000 to 22 projects in 8 countries in Africa. All to those protecting and preserving endangered African wildlife species, all funded by donations from people all around the world!

And they sent Moses $500 to get the bee hives off the ground. And there’s good news about the effectiveness of the project, with examples such as this one.

Mr Baraka reported that over 50 elephants from a neighbouring reserve were entering his fields and destroying his food crops.

Beehives were mounted – and the number of elephants rapidly dropped to 25.  Within 4 weeks, Mr Baraka was reporting that no elephants had come into his fields, saving his crops.  This means they will have food this season.

More farmers are asking for beehive fences now and you can sponsor a beehive to be included in a fence.  In fact, you can also sponsor an entire fence – about 10 beehives make up an effective fence in most cases.

Can Bees be the “Peacemakers” and solve human-wildlife conflicts with Elephants?

You can dedicate your beehive in honour or in memory of someone.

So go ahead, what are you waiting for? Remember, to note the exact spelling of the name you wish to see on the beehive, or beehives.

Sponsor a Bee Hive here and you’ll help reduce conflict between people and elephants.   If you’re not sure, take a look at comments from donors – we can all make a difference 

Sign up for Nikela’s newsletter

The Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust (founded by Gerald Durrell) have an appeal at the moment.

Once, the southern foothills of the Himalayas were covered with lush grasslands.  These grasslands were homes to animals such as elephants, rhinos and tigers.

Today, thanks to human activity, there’s less than 10% of the original grassland left.

And there are less than 250 pygmy hogs left in the wild.  They rely on this ecosystem – and unless action is taken fast, the grasslands will vanish.  Their home will be gone forever.

Pygmy hogs and other native wildlife can only thrive if these grasslands recover.

And that’s where Durrell and you & I come in.

To protect and restore the grasslands in and around the Manas National Park, Durrell need a 4WD vehicle.   They need to monitor wildlife and understand the threats that this ecosystem faces.  And they need to reach communities and reach important sites across 3 protected areas of grasslands – ensuring that the reintroductions of pygmy hogs goes successfully.

There are all sorts of ways your donation can help. 

Donate and you can help save the wildlife and communities who rely on the grasslands.

Pygmy hogs are depending on you and I to help them.  I have made a donation – will you?

Donate here and help Durrell rewild India's grasslands

Looking through the info I have on Good Being Done, I was delighted to see that forestry authorities in Shaanxi Province have launched an ecological corridor programme.

The province is situated in the north west of China, and the idea behind the programme is to connect habitats of giant pandas which have become fragmented.   This means that the pandas will be able to move between the habitats.

By way of bridge construction and road culvert clearance, six such corridors will be built by 2027 in the Qinling mountains areas.  The pandas will then be able to move around more easily.

That’s not all – bamboo trees will be planted along the corridors, and vegetation will be restored.  This means that the pandas will have more to eat.

The thing is that this defragmentation of panda habitat was all down to human activities again.   Human doings such as road traffic and hydropower station construction caused it. And that meant the pandas couldn’t connect and breed – they find breeding hard enough as it is – so it didn’t help the panda population.

Nationwide research showed that there were about 345 wild pandas living in the Qinling areas, so may there be many more in the future!

http://www.xinhuanet.com

Life of Rare Pandas
by National Geographic And Wildlife Animal Documentary

Here we go again.  More trophy hunters after the thrill of the kill.

This time, it’s gorgeous, adorable puffins. 

Companies in Iceland (the country, not the supermarket) are offering guided puffin hunts.  A hunter can pay $3,650 each for a chance to bag up to 100 puffins at a time.  How on earth can you want to do that?

The IUCN’s Red List lists puffins as “vulnerable”.  And that means that if things don’t change for the better, they could go extinct.

Over the last 10 years, Iceland’s Atlantic puffin population has fallen by 1.5 million.  And Iceland allows hunters to kill thousands of puffins every year.  Many end up on plates in local restaurants, served to curious tourists. 

And by the way, companies in Iceland also give people the chance to hunt reindeer, goose, and Ptarmigan.

Millions of people want to get a closer look at puffins every year, from the island of Alderney to Norway, the Faroe Islands, the USA and Canada.  Many of these places have puffin viewing tours, which give people the chance to see puffins alive and close up.

So why can’t Iceland stop the hunt to kill puffin tours and put more emphasis on having hunt to see, enjoy and love tours instead?

Please sign this petition. 

Tell Iceland's president Jóhannesson to protect their puffins, not kill them.

And by the way, Theresa Villiers, Britain’s new environment secretary, is being urged to ban puffins which have been killed in trophy hunts. And also to push CITES to list seabirds for global protection. 

RSPB Spotlight Puffins
£9.99
from the RSPB Online Shop