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1. National Trust goes wilder for wildlife

   Posted on 9:00pm Tuesday 18th Jul 2017

   The National Trust is the largest private landowner in the UK.   It recently announced plans to help reverse the decline of wildlife on the land in its care. The National Trust was set up to protect places of natural beauty; it has a plan! It is going to create and restore 'priority'  wildlife habitats on 10% of its land - chalk, grassland and arable field margins. By 2025, at least 50% of its farmland will be nature friendly with protected hedgerows, field margins, ponds, woodlands and other habitats allowing plants and animals to thrive. Over 1,500 farm tenants on National Trust land are already farming in ways which benefit wildlife.  The Director of Land, Landscape and Nature is called Peter Nixon.  He says, "Nature has been squeezed out to the margins for far too long.   We want to help bring it back to the heart of our countryside."   Nature can rejuvenate.   Wildlife just need the right conditions to survive and we can all help create them.   We just need to make it happen.  And then birds such as the cuckoo, lapwing and curlew may come back and return to the fields, woods and meadows again.   Visit the National Trust

    

2. Elephant news from Liberia

   Posted on 9:00pm Wednesday 5th Jul 2017

   There's good news for elephants!

   The Librarian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has formally signed off on a National Elephant African Plan.

   The plan was devised by Fauna & Flora International (FFI) and its partners and it's being funded by Stop Ivory.  It aims to tackle the increasing threat to Liberia's forest elephants. 

   Poaching has escalated, and forest elephants are severely threatened.   Numbers are difficult to estimate with any degree of accuracy but they are thought to be as low as 300 individuals. 

   

   The National Elephant Action Plan helps to identify specific actions and interventions for which targeted funding will be sought to address this data gap.  The first nationwide baseline assessment of forest elephants in Liberia is one such action. 

   West Africa has lost over 90% of its suitable elephant habitat over the last 35 years, due to logging, mining and agriculture.  Elephants need enormous areas to roam, so in order for them to survive, it's essential to safeguard their remaining habitats and the wildlife corridors that connect them.  

   Fauna and Flora say that you can only find forest elephants in 8 African countries now.  Liberia has the largest forest cover, so the population of forest elephants there is really important.

   The new National Elephant Action Plan will complement the broader African Elephant Action Plan by providing a guide for the protection and conservation of forest elephants in Liberia.

   This plan is vital as FFI's Liberia Programme Manager, Michelle Klailova, says, "and I quote,  “It will allow us to obtain a better understanding of the issues surrounding the distribution and conservation of Liberia’s elephants, identify the key threats and establish a programme of measures to ensure the survival of the species in Liberia.

   “The Liberian President’s signature will ensure the ideas and objectives towards elephant conservation are not just theoretical but actually implemented through the action plan,” she added.

   This new commitment by the Liberian President proves the government’s commitment to protecting its natural environment.

   FInd out more from Fauna and Flora International here

3. Africa's largest marine conservation area is being created in the waters of Gabon

   Posted on 9:00pm Monday 12th Jun 2017

   There's news from the west coast of Africa. The largest marine conservation area in the continent is being created - a network of 9 new national marine parks and 11 new aquatic reserves is going to extend across a massive 20,500 square miles in territorial waters and out into Gabon's economic zone.  The area covers 26% will protect 26 percent of Gabon’s territorial seas. The move will help protect fish stocks from over-fishing and also help the area cope better with changing climates and give the corals there a chance to recover. The goal is to protect the waters for generations to come, and Ali Bongo Ondimba, who took over the presidency of the country after his father died in 2009, sees them the areas as precious as the rainforests which cover 90% of Gabon.   The Gabon waters have some of the world's largest stocks of Altantic tuna, so there is a danger of overfishing.   The hope is that fish stocks will be revived and the breeding grounds of whales, dolphins and turtles will be protected by the move.  Thank you, Gabon, for caring about the future of our waters for generations to come, both people and marine life.

    

4. Ocean conservation hits the spotlight

   Posted on 5:40pm Tuesday 6th Jun 2017

   This is an important week for all of us. From 5th to 9th June in New York, the United Nations is holding its first ever high level meeting specifically to address ocean conservation.  Key discussions will take place about targets to:   Reduce pollution and debris; Protect marine eco-systems; End overfishing and destructive fishing practices;  Minimise the effects of ocean acidification  It's about time. There’s always a lot of talk about preserving the rainforests on our planet and very little about ocean conservation.  This must mean marine conservationists feel they are banging their heads against a brick wall.    To make matters worse, many people are very disconnected to ocean life.   A day at the seaside means ice-creams, sun tan lotion, swimming, trying to get all the sand out of your gear before you lug it back into your car again, lying lazily in the sun, going for a paddle, splashing about in the water, surfboarding in the sea, playing games and trying to top up your tan without ending up looking like the person a few metres away from you who is as red as a tomato.  We may fleetingly look out over the ocean so blue, and wonder what lies beyond; and equally feel quite powerless when we see this huge chunk of water drifting in and out before us. We may be indifferent to its state - what does it matter what state the ocean is in? So long as the coastline is clear for us to swim in and paddle about in, that’s fair enough.   We’ve got tuna sandwiches, the tuna having been bought from a kiosk or the supermarket, and we’re enjoying ourselves – never mind how it was caught or where it came from, or what the fish itself had eaten before it was caught. And in any case, what can we personally do to make a difference?  We may feel that on our own, we’re all too powerless to make a difference.  However.... We do however want to be sure that when we go to the beach to enjoy the sea air and the sea itself, to meet friends, to spend family time together, we don’t want to find ourselves sitting in the middle of a rubbish dump.  We don’t want to spend ages looking for a spot on the beach that’s rubbish-free – forgetting what could be under the sand.  We don’t want the food we put into our bodies to contain tiny bits of plastic that the fish we’re eating swallowed before we did.  We don’t want to sit next to other people’s wet-wipes they used in the bathroom which have ended up in our sewage systems, or discover we’ve put our picnic stuff on someone’s toothbrush, cigarette lighter or the cotton wool bud they used to clean out their ears before chucking it away.

    

   Our wildlife and marine life need a healthy environment in which to thrive, not survive.  We need a healthy, thriving marine life and ocean if we’re to thrive, as well. There are lots of good things happening around the world and I hope to bring news of more of them regularly.   The United Nations and governments around the world can have their own discussions but that’s not enough.  There are 7 billion of us on this planet.   If 1,000 people in Mumbai in India can clear a beach of its rubbish bit by bit in 85 months, imagine what 10 of us could do on a small beach somewhere else.  The more of us who get stuck in, whether we act on our own, or join others who want to make a difference, the better. One person taking one action and telling another about it can spiral a chain reaction and inspire others to do the same as well.  There is a LOT going on and tons of local initiatives and events happening on the coastlines around the world which really are making a difference.

   Ocean Info Oceans cover over 70% of the earth’s surface. Oceans provide about 99% of our planet’s living space Oceans absorb just over 25% of the carbon dioxide we produce every year Over 90% of the enhanced heating from the greenhouse effect & other human activities are absorbed by our oceans Two thirds of the oceans are beyond national jurisdiction

   Care for the ocean, and you care for you You’ll probably have heard the phrase, “You can’t eat an elephant in one bite”.  It’s essentially saying that the task of eating an elephant is so enormous that it’s only by breaking job down into small pieces that you can tackle it, piece by piece.  Caring for our ocean and conserving it needs the same approach.   We all need to break down caring for the ocean into lots of bits, so lots of people are doing their bits and helping out. There are two key actions we can all take:

   Help clear up the rubbish we made

   Stop producing the rubbish in the first place

   One person taking one action and telling another about it can spiral a chain reaction and inspire others to do the same as well.  There is a LOT going on and tons of local initiatives and events happening on the coastlines around the world which really are making a difference.   

5. Great news for Elephants from the World Land Trust

   Posted on 7:00pm Friday 2nd Jun 2017

   
   

   There are some charities which really do strike a chord with you and make you sit up and think, "Wow". The World Land Trust does it for me.   I think it's an amazing charity.  It protects the world's most important and threatened wildlife habitats, acre by acre. In fact, you can sponsor or give the gift of an acre, which makes for a marvellous gift because it lasts. Since it was founded in 1989 - so not that long ago compared to other charities - the World Land Trust has funded partner organisations around the world to create reserves, and thereby give permanent protection to habitats and wildlife. Habitats are vital to wildlife.  They matter.  Without a healthy habitat to live in, wildlife can't survive.  The World Land Trust has just succeeded in raising funds for a wildlife corridor in India, linking two tiger reserves.   The animal who'll probably benefit most from this corridor is the Indian elephant.  Elephants needed a safe passage to travel between two Ghats mountain ranges for food and mates.  The funding is being used for land exchange:  the landowner can continue subsistence farming, but away from the passage.   The elephants have been raiding crops as they pass between villages which of course caused conflict between people and elephants.  Hence the appeal was called the Elephant Corridor Appeal.  The success of the World Land Trust's campaign is critical because it gives safe passage to Indian elephants passing through the Mudahalli corridor between the Eastern and Western Ghats, and that can now be secured.  On this occasion, the Trust worked with the Wildlife Trust of India.  So far, Barking Deer, Black-naped Hare, Chital, Sambar Deer, Sloth Bear and Wild Boar have all been seen in the corridor forest and extension area, as well as tigers and elephants.  This is all thanks to the supporters of World Land Trust's campaign.   People (no doubt from all over the world, although the Trust is based in the UK. To me, news like this is fantastic.  This was an effort by a lot of people who were willing to put money into securing this wildlife corridor.   It reinforces what can be done by people coming together to make a difference. We can all create change by acting as individuals, but how much greater our power is when we come together! Elephants of India, enjoy your wildlife corridor.  Be safe. And thank you World Land Trust for the amazing work you and your partners do.