"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
If you can sew, or knit or crochet, then a number of animal charities would welcome your help!
You'll find a short list of them at AnimalsCharities.co.uk. The page is called Knitting for Charities but there will be other things you can do to help as well - crochet, sewing - it's just a matter of exploring their information to see what help the charities need.
People all over the world are knitting, sewing and crocheting for animals...My Auntie Susan used to knit blankets for the cats at the local rescue close to where she lived in New Zealand, which is what gave me the idea for the Knitting for Charities page. It's a great way to do something purposeful in those long winter months!
The Giraffe Conservation Foundation reports that they have made efforts to make sure that giraffe numbers in Kenya receive better protection.
The charity has given financial support to the Kenya Wildlife Service and other conservation partners to undertake aerial surveys in northern Kenya.
And good news! The surveys are showing a 30% increase in reticulated giraffe numbers on communal land and private conservancies in the last 6 years.
Meantime, in the south of Kenya, the charity has held the first ever Masai Giraffe Working Group meeting to bring conservation partners together with the Kenya Wildlife Service. The aim was to identify current threats to Masai giraffe and pinpoint measures to protect them.
And there’s more – the charity’s year long surveys in Mwea National Reserve and Ruma National Park show there are double the numbers of Nubian giraffe than previously thought, so this is a great boost to Nubian giraffe there.
There are renewed efforts to update and complete a National Recovery and Action Plan for giraffe in Kenya, held over a two day workshop. The plan will be launched later this year.
Don’t forget – a date for your diary – the 21st June is World Giraffe Day. Why not adopt a giraffe as a gift for someone or for yourself?
Beavers can be quite controversial animals in the natural world; personally I admire them for their incredible engineering skills.
About 400 years ago, beavers were hunted to extinction in the UK but they are being re-introduced (with caution) in the hope that they will help restore our wetlands to their natural state and also reduce the impact of flooding.
Forestry England has produced this video showing why beavers build dams. Their teeth are really quite something (the beavers, not Forestry England.)
Now, a number of the UK's Wildlife Trusts have beaver appeals and they are Dorset, Derbyshire, Devon, Cheshire, Cornwall and Kent.
The Wildlife Trust's website describe beavers as the engineers of the animal world and looking at the video above, it's easy to see why.
To support the Wildlife Trust's conservation efforts, you could Adopt a Beaver either for yourself or as a gift for a nature lover!
Of course you should also take a look at the Beaver Trust. I hope they won't mind me quoting their very exciting mission which is:
"to recover Britain’s waterways and landscapes through the rapid and widespread re-establishment of beaver wetlands across whole river catchments."
Their belief is that beavers are a practical, low-cost solution for long-term restoration. They can help revesse the trend of extinction of British wildlife. You can see from their map where beavers are in the UK.
Furthermore, the Beaver Trust reports that in the US West, land managers and scientists hare using beaver dam analogs to do three things:
There’s good news for spectacled bears in Peru from the World Land Trust!
Locals in the Amazonas Department have successfully expanded a reserve in one of the most biodiverse ecoregions in the world. It’s essential for spectacled bears and critically endangered primates.
Originally 8,155 acres were envisioned but the community owned area has been enlarged by 21,530 acres!
This was made possible by Natureleza y Cultura Peru and World Land Trust supporters such as Puro Coffee. Well done and thank you to them! The reserves now protects 64,700 acres in what is a key biological corridor.
130 flora species and 29 mammal species call the area home, and there are 65 avian species as well.
The success of this project just shows how important it is to have local communities steer conservation efforts and how vital it is to involve them at every stage. The communities manage the land, and NCP give them training and support in such areas as reserve mapping, fire prevention and tourism. The area is rapidly being turned into agricultural land so you can see how important this development is.
There’s good news from Ecuador, brought to us by the World Land Trust and their partner Naturalez y Cultura Ecuador (NCE for short).
The Santiago Municipal Reserve was officially declared early this month.
It’s is an important expansion of vital habitat for species, covering 34,051 acres, and it’s a link between two national parks. Essentially it’s expanded the Sangay-Podocarpus Connectivity Corridor which spans 1.4 million acres as well as parts of the Podocarpus-El Condor Biosphere Reserve. WLT and NCE work here, too.
However the protected land doesn’t stop there. North of the aforementioned connectivity corridor, there’s a 200 mile long area of reserves and national parks. They like along the eastern Andes, connected by the Llanganates-Sangay Biological Corridor which is managed by Fundacion Ecominga, another WLT partner. So the network of protected areas now covers about 4 million acres.
The most recent acquisition of 34,051 acres was partly funded by donations to the World Land Trust’s Action Fund. The idea behind the Action Fund is that the World Land Trust can respond rapidly to any need to purchase land.
This purchase is an excellent example of the Action Fund at work and how important it is to be able to move fast in conservation.
The forests and grasslands would have faced cattle ranching and timber chopping, but thanks to the efforts of supporters like you and me, they have been saved. Scientists have already recorded 344 plant species, 152 species of birds, 57 amphibian species, 47 mammal species and 11 reptile species. They all call the area home.