"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
The Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust has moved into 2019 looking forward to its 60th anniversary....It was founded back in 1959 by author and naturalist Gerald Durrell.
The charity is committed to saving some of the most vulnerable animals on the planet from extinction.
For instance, a duck thought to be extinct for 15 years has been brought back from the brink and given a new home on a remote lake in Madagascar.
The Jersey based charity has a video called Conservation Works, narrated by Alexander Armstrong and here it is from You Tube:
Durrell's approach:
The charity runs 50 projects in 18 countries, focusing on islands.
The role of the zoo in Jersey and overseas is conservation, managing breeding programmes for release back into the wild.
It has 25 years of conservation training and runs courses for conservationists.
And it uses science to help idenfity priorities, design conservation policy and practice and animal husbandry and to evaluate the impact of its work.
In the last 30 years, Durrell has helped move 14 target species in danger of extinction away from the edge.
As a Jersey girl, I'm very proud of Durrell and the work it does, and wish everyone there and associated with it a very Happy 60th Anniversary! Keep up the wonderful work :-)
100 years ago, there were about 100,000 tigers across Asia. Today, there are just 4,000 and the tiger is officially classified a Endangered by the IUCN (that’s the International Union for Conservation of Nature).
Threats to tigers include
Human-wildlife conflict
Poaching for body parts for traditional “medicine”
Habitat loss because of deforestation and development, which people are driving
Born Free have an initiative called Living with Tigers. It’s a network of Indian NGOs working across central India in the Satpuda area.
The network does a number of things, namely to:
Tackle the poaching crisis
Safeguard tiger habitats
Find compassionate solutions so that communities and wildlife can live together
There’s a dedicated teams of Tiger Ambassadors. These are local villagers who are trained to identify signs of tigers being present in their area and to help if conflict arises.
There’s also a Mobile Education Unit which teachers local school children about wildlife conservation.
So the good news for tiger conservation is....
Tiger numbers have increased to 500 across the Satpuda landscape in the last 10 years. This is great news but Born Free wants to go further. It wants to:
Safeguard wild tiger populations in central India
Work with more local communities to reduce human-wildlife conflict
Create more protected areas so that wildlife can flourish
Educate more people on the importance of conservation and approaches to co-existence.
The World Land Trust reports that trail cameras in the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve there have filmed a Black Bear recorded in central Mexico.
This is the first Black Bear recorded there for 100 years!
There's also footage of a nine-banded Armadillo and Jaguar.
Back in 2018, supporters of the World Land Trust raised a whopping £57,800 to protect an area of the forest of 578 acres - that's the size of nearly 300 football pitches!
Would you like to help the World Land Trust protect more acres for wildlife?
Panthera is dedicated solely to the conservation of wild cats. And Panthera has shared its plans for 2019 and the advances it wants to make for big cats:
Take On Wildlife Crime and Trafficking Globally To clamp down on the threat to other cat species in areas of the world where wildlife crime is rising. Funding from the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will help Panthera to increase its work with government partners around the world to disrupt the criminals targeting tigers, lions, jaguars, leopards and snow leopards.
Revolutionize the Way it Shares and Uses Scientific Data To roll out what is arguably the largest collection of data on wild cats in the world. Its new data system will enable scientists and partners to expand and share knowledge in ways they never have before, with immediate access to millions of camera trap images and analytical tools applicable across species, sites, and regions. This global network will change the way conservation is done and speed progress.
Increase its Eyes on the Wild To produce and use up to 10,000 of the PantheraCam V7s - meaning that up to 28,000 camera traps will be in the field. These should be a big help to wild cat biologists.
There’s news from Wilmar International. They are important, because the Singapore based company supplies 40% of the world’s palm oil.
They say (which is different to actually doing) that they will commit to map its suppliers’ entire landbank by the end of 2019.
Wilmar is going to use satellite monitoring to check for deforestation. If they catch companies cutting virgin forest for plantations, those companies will immediately be suspended from doing business with Wilmar.
Greenpeace say they will be watching this development carefully and its activists have been busy in the last few months. If Wilmar does what it says, it means that by 2019 it will be almost impossible for its suppliers to get away with forest destruction.
The problem with palm oil is that it’s cheap – so used in a major way in cosmetics, toiletries and food products.
Huge areas of rainforest have been destroyed to allow for palm oil plantations.
Wildlife species have been badly hit, most notably the orangutan.
Wilmar’s decision comes about because people are showing a backlash against companies that use unsustainable and unverified palm oil.
We must all watch this development and see what Wilmar International actually does. As I said at the start, making these plans is different to actually carrying them out and DOING them. But it’s a start and could be a useful benchmark with which to see what progress they make by the end of 2019.
Make a Difference NOW to Rainforest Conservation
An Indonesian oil palm plantation is up for sale and the Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS) has a golden opportunity to buy this land and restore the lush forest that once stood there. They need to raise £870,000 by February 2019 to do this and help save the habitat for orangutans. As I write, over £512,000 has been donated already. Find out more and donate here.
Lots of people are giving £5 or £10 or whatever they can to this appeal. What matters is that lots of us take action and give something to make a difference and get this land to protect it for wildlife. I donated for my aunt’s birthday present as she adores orangutans. Every £1 or $1 helps. Donate here
