I look forward to seeing some of you locals at events in London. And whatever you do, enjoy yourself!

Follow the cause on Facebook

Read More about Tilin on the BBC’s website

Read more: Consumers shun ‘green’ palm oil

2010 marks a very special year for the Jane Goodall Institute and its founder. Fifty years ago, Jane first set foot on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, in what is now Tanzania’s Gombe National Park, and began the research that would inspire thousands of primatologists and conservationists, even to this day. Her story is an amazing one, starting with her saving her earnings as a waitress to make the trip abroad. She arrived with only a notebook, a pair of binoculars, a self-taught knowledge of the natural world, and an amazing enthusiasm for the world’s creatures. It is incredible to look at the wealth of achievement that has come from this, and I believe Jane’s is the perfect story to illustrate that anything can be achieved if you are passionate and dedicated enough. Becoming involved in animal research, especially for the conservation of endangered species, should not be viewed as an opportunity only for those lucky enough to hold a doctorate or similar. It is a cause that should embrace all that love and believe in it. Everyone can contribute, on whatever level, all you need is a bit of determination!

Congratulations to Jane and everyone who has been involved in her amazing projects over the years. You have inspired me and many, many others.

The World Environment Center’s (WEC) Twenty-Fourth Annual Gold Medal for International Corporate Achievement in Sustainable Development has been awarded to Marks & Spencer for linking sustainability extensively with its supply chain, operations, and customers. Marks & Spencer’s signature contribution, known as “Plan A”, was cited by the independent international Gold Medal Jury as an extraordinary and successful model of sustainability practice. Plan A is a magnificent commitment from such a large UK retailer.

Following the success of their 2005, “Look behind the label” campaign, leading UK retailer, Marks and Spencer launched a £200m ethical campaign in 2006, entitled Plan A. The 100-point, five year sustainable development program, covers all aspects of Marks & Spencer’s business. Through it, the UK retailer aims to become carbon neutral and send no waste to landfill from its own operations; extend sustainable sourcing; set new standards in ethical trading and help its customers and employees live a healthier lifestyle.

Stuart Rose, Chief Executive, Marks & Spencer said:

“We are delighted to receive this prestigious award. Our customers, shareholders and employees have also embraced our Plan A ambitions, and it’s now how we do business. While we still have a long way to go and face many more challenges ahead, we are making good progress and this recognition will provide even more motivation for our teams as we continue to deliver our plan.”

The WEC Gold Medal Award will be presented to Marks & Spencer at the 24th Gold Medal Presentation gala on Friday, May 9, 2008 at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. Mr. Stuart Rose, Chief Executive will accept the award on behalf of the company and its employees.

+ 2008 WEC Gold Medal Award (pdf)
+ Marks & Spencer: Plan A
+ Marks & Spencer: Video Interviews
+ World Environment Center

The US was blocking progress by refusing to agree to the ‘Bali Roadmap’, which effectively is an agreement containing schedules on emission cuts and transfer of clean technology to poor and developing countries. The US submission came after a very public statement from ex-vice president Al Gore blaming the US for blocking progress in Bali for their own economic gain.

The intense conference lasted 11 hours and caused emotions to run high at some points, but we have walked away with an agreement which applies to all 190 nations involved, and has paved the way for a new schedule after the Kyoto Protocol runs out in 2013 – including emissions reductions from developing countries, and fair and equal contributions from developed countries. The things that are missing, however, are points on deforestation, and actual targets agreed for emissions cut. At the moment the agreement is non-binding, and it is thought the real battle will come in 2009 when agreements for official numbers and targets are to be set. I think it is then that we shall see just how sincere the US are about this issue, or whether it was lipservice brought about by fear of losing face under mass peer objection. After all, the US never does like to admit it’s wrong…..

Finally, American Senator Ron Wyden has recognised the need for government to become involved in this issue and made a long overdue stand by introducing the 2007 ‘Combat Illegal Logging Act’ – or S.1930. It will make it illegal in America to knowingly import, sell, buy or transport illegally-sourced wood and wood products.

This is a massive step forward for an issue like this to be brought to the forefront of politics, especially by a world superpower, and especially by the country that is responsible for 25.2% of the world’s greenhouse emissions. the only problem is, this bill has to be voted in not only by Senate, but by the President aswell, and with George W. Bush’s long standing stubbornness to blatantly, not even skillfully, ignore climate change and global warming, we may be in for the long ride with this one.

OpenCongress.org

Not only are these gifts simply adorable, but the money used to buy them will go towards conservation projects to help save them from threats such as climate change, habitat destruction and poaching. The recipient will learn a little from the information provided with the adoption certificate, and you have the option to include a token soft toy to personalise it. Educational and cute!

WFF-UK: Adopt an Animal

I will be researching vigilance and social dominance in Vervet Monkeys, and cannot wait to see these beautiful creatures behaving naturally in the wild. I will be spending two months over there, however must the fund the trip myself. Therefore, if anyone knows of any funding avenues, I would be very grateful if you could contact me julesq82@googlemail.com. Many thanks all, I will be supplying regular updates on my progress including pictures, so stay online!

Fong, 25 graduated from Bowling Green State University and is now working as a designer at an advertising agency in downtown Cleveland. His animal and primate illustrations are just wonderful. Thanks Peter.

By using new molecular and genomic data, gathered by a team from Penn State University, it has been shown that the colugos are the closest surviving relative of all primates.”

HEADLINES:
[15.11.07] IAR Global News

The Rainforest Foundation need our help now to safeguard the basic human rights of indigenous peoples who play a crucial role in protecting Congo’s rainforests. Please sign the Rainforest petition urging Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso to support this vital legislation affecting the lives of tens of thousands of indigenous peoples.

HEADLINES
[10.10.07] GreenAwards

Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International, said: “You could fit all the surviving members of these 25 species in a single football stadium. That’s how few of them remain on Earth today.”

The report warns that failure to respond to the mounting threats now exacerbated by climate change will bring the first primate extinctions in more than a century. Overall, 114 of the world’s 394 primate species are classified as threatened with extinction on the IUCN Red List.

The World’s 25 Most Endangered Primates, and the countries where they are found:
1. Greater bamboo lemur (Prolemur simus), Madagascar
2. White-collared lemur (Eulemur albocollaris), Madagascar
3. Sahamalaza Peninsula sportive lemur (Lepilemur sahamalazensis), Madagascar
4. Silky sifaka (Propithecus candidus), Madagascar
5. Cross River gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli), Nigeria, Cameroon
6. Roloway monkey (Cercopithecus diana roloway), Ivory Coast, Ghana
7. Rondo dwarf galago (Galagoides rondoensis), Tanzania
8. Tana River red colobus (Procolobus rufomitratus), Kenya
9. Miss Waldron’s red colobus (Procolobus badius), Ivory Coast, Ghana
10. Kipunji (Rungwecebus kipunji), Tanzania
11. Pennant’s red colobus (Procolobus pennantii pennantii), Equatorial Guinea (Island of Bioko)
12. Variegated spider monkey (Ateles hybridus), Colombia, Venezuela
13. Brown-headed spider monkey (Ateles fusciceps), Colombia, Ecuador
14. Peruvian yellow-tailed woolly monkey (Oreonax flavicauda), Peru
15. Western Hoolock gibbon (Hoolock hoolock), Bangladesh, India, Myanmar
16. Horton Plains slender loris (Loris tardigradus nycticeboides), Sri Lanka
17. Western purple-faced langur (Semnopithecus vetulus nestor), Sri Lanka
18. Pig-tailed langur (Simias concolor), Indonesia (Mentawai Islands)
19. Siau Island tarsier (Tarsius sp.), Indonesia
20. Delacour’s langur (Trachypithecus delacouri), Vietnam
21. Golden-headed langur (Trachypithecus poliocephalus poliocephalus), Vietnam
22. Grey-shanked douc (Pygathrix cinerea), Vietnam
23. Tonkin snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus avunculus), Vietnam
24. Hainan black-crested gibbon (Nomascus hainanus), China (Hainan Island)
25. Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii), Indonesia (Sumatra)

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT:
Primates in Peril: The World’s 25 Most Endangered Primates 2006–2008 [pdf]

HEADLINES
[29.10.07] Science Daily
[29.10.07] National Geographic
[26.10.07] Times Online
[26.10.07] Associated Press
[26.10.07] BBC News

The remaining wild elephants, tigers and bears in Myanmar’s forests are being hunted down slowly and sold to China. Nestled in hills in a rebel-controlled enclave on the Chinese border, the “Las Vegas in the jungle” casino town is clearly branching out from narcotics and prostitution into the illegal wildlife business. Besides row upon row of fruit, vegetables and cheap plastic sandals, the market offers a grisly array of animal parts, as well as many live specimens, to the hundreds of Chinese tourists who flock across the border each day.

Bear paws and gall bladders, elephant tusks and chunks of hide, tiger and leopard skins, as well as big cat teeth and deer horn are all openly on display next to crudely welded cages of live macaques, cobras, Burmese star tortoises and pangolins. The live creatures, some of them on the IUCN Conservation Union’s “Red List” of critically endangered species, are destined for the cooking pots of exotic animal restaurants in China’s neighboring Yunnan province, or further afield. Food stalls in the market openly advertise dishes of pangolin or black bear. The body parts – some of which will not be real, given the ease with which a pig bladder can be passed off as that of a bear – will either be ground up for traditional medicine, worn as amulets or simply hung on the wall as trophies. Read the full report at Reuters.

HEADLINES:
[03.09.07] Reuters

Carbon Dioxide emissions are 35% higher in 2006 than 1990 – a much higher growth rate than previously anticipated by the Climate Change Panel. 3 factors were cited as mostly responsible for this unprecedented rise; global economic growth, the global economy becoming more carbon intense, and a decline in the ocean and land’s ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. “Weakening lands and ocean sinks are contributing to the accelerating growth of atmospheric CO2″ said co-author Chris Field.

Even scientists not involved with the research have cited that it contains information the public should be aware of, “Namely that concentrations of CO2 are increasing at much higher rates than previously expected and this is in spite of the Kyoto Protocol that is designed to hold them down in western countries.” said Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

According to the new study, carbon released from burning fossil fuel and making cement rose from 7.0 billion metric tons per year in 2000 to 8.4 billion metric tons in 2006. The growth rate increased from 1.3 percent per year in 1990-1999 to 3.3 percent per year in 2000-2006, the researchers added.

+ National Academy of Sciences

She shows how progress is helping research (DNA analysis) and hurting the environment (clear-cutting). And she draws a dozen parallels between primate and human behaviour, making the point that we really aren’t all that different. Our big advantage, she says, is the ability to communicate with sophisticated spoken language – yet, sadly, we are abusing this power and destroying the planet. She urges the TED audience to behave differently, and use their higher powers to correct the planet’s course.

Smits was so disturbed that he returned to the market that same evening, just in time to find the limp body of the orangutan lying on a rubbish heap where the trader had dumped it. It was the start of a lifelong mission to save one of the world’s last surviving great apes from extinction and to preserve its rainforest habitat that is rapidly being destroyed in Borneo.

“Time is running out. We have less than two years to save the last 40,000 wild orangutans from extinction,” Smits said during an interview in the German port city of Hamburg, pointing that there were once more than three million of the apes.

INFORMATION:
+ Samboja Lodge
+ Create Rainforest

HEADLINES:
[26.10.07] Borneo Orangutan Survival UK (BOS)
[26.10.07] Digital Journal

The field station is set over 1000 hectares of lush rainforest, and the wildlife you will see and study includes white-faced capuchins, mantled howling monkeys, black-handed spider monkeys, tapir, jaguar, collared peccary, keel-billed toucans, great green macaws, brown caimans just to name a few. During your time there you will learn field techniques that can be used in tropical research in areas of ecology, behaviour and conservation.

To find out more about this amazing opportunity, please contact Kimberely Dingess on kdingess@danta.info, or read more at Primate-Jobs.

A new network of guard posts has been set up to enable anyone heading up the river or into any of these watched areas to be stopped, checked ad turned away if they have no permission to be there. “These new guard post will protect a large area of the park that could otherwise be exposed to illegal activities,” said Ashley Leiman (OBE), director of the Orangutan Foundation. They are also cheap to run by western standards. Four guard posts funded by the Orangutan Foundation cost £800 per month and provide 11 local jobs.

However many guards are provided, the ultimate fate of this park and all other rainforest areas lies with the local people. An inspiring education project is being run by an Indonesian NGO in a town near to the forest, but more of these are needed as it is imperative that we teach the very people that can kill or revive the rainforest the importance and consequences of their actions.

There are several ways you can help the Orangutan Foundation protect orangutans and their habitat. If you would like to become a member, make a donation or adopt an orangutan, visit www.orangutan.org.uk.

HEADLINES:
[22.10.07] Telegraph, Ian Wood reports.

The main threat to the Orangutan species is the loss of habitat in their only native countries of Burma and Sumatra, Indonesia. A report earlier this year from the United Nations’ Environment Programme [UNEP] said Indonesia’s forest habitat for orangutans may be gone by 2022 without intervention. Boycotting retail products that source Palm Oil from an unsustainable source, can cut down on the massive rainforest loss.

RETAIL RESPONSIBLY

• Read the labels of your grocery and toiletry shopping, choose brands that either do not use Palm Oil at all, or use a sustainable source.
• Do not buy any wood materials from an uncertified tropical hardwood – it will have come from an illegal logging site. Anything from toothpicks to furniture…..
• Next time you pass a charity box at a zoo or otherwise aimed at underfunded conservation efforts – drop £1 in. If we all made a small contribution the difference would be huge.

Not only are the trees destroyed, but the mothers killed and the babies taken away to be sold as illegal pets, forcing them into a new life of captivity and misery. Please do a little something to help – a little change for you could make a massive change for them.

Dr Peter Fashing is the founder of this initiative, following a trip to Ethiopia, where he saw the devastating effect of global warming on the native populations of Gelada Baboons. The program is run through workshops at the Zoo and a website, which gives excellent, easy tips for every household.

• Walk, ride a bike or take public transport
• Change the light bulbs in your home to energy efficient
• Buy local produce from farmers markets
• Don’t waste paper or plastic
• Compost your food to make home-made fertilizer

[18.10.07] MSNBC

Native to South America, Marmosets feed on insects and plants, and have characteristic curved claws which allow them to swing easily from tree to tree in the wild. If you wish to see this little bundle of joy, please wander on down to the New World Monkey enclosures at London Zoo.

The World Wildlife Federation is offering the trip of a lifetime through the Amazon Rainforest between 7th-16th March 2008. You will sail down the river through the rainforest, on your way encountering many beautiful and rare species such as dolphins, monkeys, macaws, butterflies and frogs. There is no work involved, and it is simply a chance for you to be guided through the unexplored Amazon and watch the wildlife bustling around you in its natural and diverse environment.

The whole trip costs $3698, or £1805, and all travel, accommodation and activities are planned out for you, allowing you to relax and enjoy the view! Its a great holiday, with a BIG difference.

+ WWF: Amazon River Trip

The trade in wild animals as pets causes suffering to millions of animals, disrupts ecosystems and drives species to extinction. The trade also provides a route for disease transmission, which poses a risk to human and animal health.

ENDCAP opposes the trade in wild animals as pets as it is unsustainable, inhumane and puts public and animal heath at risk. ENDCAP urges the European Community to urgently review the effects of the ongoing trade in wild-caught reptiles on public health, animal health and welfare, and species conservation and to take appropriate action, where necessary, to address these issues.

Please take some time to read this report.

The World Wildlife Federation ad campaigns consistently utilize their existing surroundings very well. Here we have a paper dispenser with South America cut out, and green foil to tint your view… “clearly conveying that with every piece of paper you take, you’re taking away from the greenness of south america. How multisensory and engaging beyond a simple sticker/poster. By Saatchi & Saatchi, Copenhagen, Denmark.”

Via. NotCot.com

The Sustainable Furniture Council is a non-profit industry association founded at High Point, NC in October 2006 to promote sustainable practices among manufacturers, retailers, and consumers alike.

The SFC recognizes the overwhelming scientific consensus that our world is experiencing dangerous global climate change. SFC members acknowledge the tremendous urgency, and will take immediate steps to minimize carbon emissions, waste stream pollutants, un-recyclable content and primary materials from unsustainable sources from any product platform under our control.

SFC members will utilize Life Cycle Assessment as the best method for analyzing the environmental impact of their products, and a verifiable chain of custody as the only acceptable method for tracking wood flow.

+ The Sustainable Furniture Council

Reptiles are up, wild birds are down, chickens are getting better but monkeys aren’t moving, according to a ground-breaking report from the RSPCA published Monday.

The charity’s second annual statistical look at animal welfare in the UK, taking in wildlife to farming, research animals to pets, highlights several stories including:

The proportion of people who feel that for a society to be truly civilised, animal welfare must be a key priority has leapt from 54% to 73% in the last year. 1 · Six out of ten people think that supermarkets should stop selling eggs laid by hens in cages*but more than six out of ten eggs still come from hens kept in this way. 2 · As few as one in five pet shops selling ‘exotic’ animals such as snakes and primates offer free written information to customers, according to a snapshot RSPCA survey. People buying pets have a legal responsibility to look after them properly, and accessible information from pet shops would help them do this.3 · The number of wild-caught birds imported into the EU has plummeted from 72,000 in 2003 to 11 last year, following a recent ban. But the number of wild-caught reptiles imported has increased from 11,000 to 18,400.

A huge increase in the number of meat chickens raised to higher-welfare standards, quadrupling from 10 million in 2004 to more than 40 million this year. However this is still less than 5% of the market.

Download the full report here.

HEADLINES:
[22.10.07] Politics.co.uk
RSPCA Animal Welfare Footprint