How About A Nice Cup of Tea?

Rhinos, tigers and elephants are some of the most beautiful, majestic creatures on Earth. Yet their survival is being threatened by a poaching crisis in Africa and increased levels of organised crime involved in illegal wildlife trade. Read WWF’s new Wildlife Crime Scorecard – which shows which countries are protecting species, and which aren’t. Also this month: a great new app to help you explore London’s watersides, and how you can support WWF with a nice cup of tea...


WWF’s new Wildlife Crime Scorecard shows that many countries aren’t doing enough to protect endangered species like rhinos, tigers and elephants. The report rates 23 Asian and African countries’ efforts to stop poaching and trafficking in ivory, rhino horn and tiger parts. Vietnam - identified in the report as the top destination country for rhino horn - is one or the worst performers, while India and Nepal were two of the best. Read the results of our Wildlife Crime Scorecard and learn how we’re fighting the illegal wildlife trade – and how you can help.


We've created a great new app to help you explore London’s 10 best waterside treasures. It’s part of The Panda Made Me Do It, our campaign to celebrate, reward and encourage pro-environmental behaviour. As you uncover these hidden gems, you can use the app to discover fascinating facts about the beautiful places you’re visiting. You can also find out what you can do to help preserve them. Download the app and you’ll be in with a chance of winning some great watery prizes too!


There’s nothing better than a nice cup of tea. Except tea that supports WWF, of course. To celebrate 10 years of creating delicious organic blends, Pukka Herbs will donate 20p from each pack of its new Peppermint and FairWild Licorice tea to WWF, supporting conservation projects worldwide. WWF members will get a free sample in September’s Action magazine. It’s all part of Pukka’s campaign to create a beautiful world. Be part of it by uploading photos and videos of your own, personal “beautiful world” to Pukka’s website. The best entries will be included in a national film early next year.


Live in Scotland and want to win £1,000 to help make your community or group greener? WWF Scotland and our friends at the People’s Postcode Lottery are looking for your brilliant ideas about how to make your group or community more environmentally friendly – from saving energy and growing your own food to picking up litter, we want your Grand, Green Ideas! To be in with a chance to win £1,000 to help you make your idea a reality go to the website and enter your ideas. The deadline is this Monday, 27 August, so you need to be quick!

EU: Quit Stalling on Banning Sow Stalls!

Right now, across Europe millions of pregnant sows are suffering in silence. They are forced to spend nearly their entire lives in cramped, barren metal cages that prevent them from carrying out even the most basic natural behaviours such as rooting, foraging and lying down comfortably.


They cannot even turn around! » 
Luckily the European Union has agreed to ban sow stalls (after the first four weeks of pregnancy) from 1st January 2013, greatly improving the quality of life for these intelligent, sentient, sensitive animals.
But there’s a problem -- some EU countries now say they will renege on their promise despite having had 11 years to prepare for the ban!
We cannot allow this vital animal welfare agreement to be ignored! Will you join me by adding your name to this petition urging EU countries to quit stalling on their promise?

Please act now to ensure that the sow stall ban is completely enforced across the EU from January 2013. »
Thanks for taking action!

Sharanya P.
Care2 and ThePetitionSite Team

Take action link: http://www.care2.com/go/z/e/AGyjR/zMNJ/AEciK

Live Tiger Cub Found in Suitcase

The baby tiger pictured above was found hidden among stuffed toy tigers in the suitcase of a woman flying from Iran to Thailand. The cub was gagged to keep him quiet, and drugged to keep him inactive.


When he was rescued, he was so dehydrated and weak he couldn't walk. Wildlife authorities rushed him to the Thailand National Parks Conservation Centre where he was given oxygen, water and special formula.

Can you imagine how frightened and confused he must have been?

The tiger cub recovered, and the smuggler was fined and faces charges. But the enormous problem of wildlife smuggling goes on.

Animals suffer horribly in the wildlife trade. I need your help today to stop it.

Most smugglers take the risk that they will not be inspected - that is why IFAW is training officials to curb this illegal trafficking of animals.

To date, IFAW has trained over 1,600 wildlife law enforcement officials in the Middle East, the Caribbean, Oceania, Africa, Bhutan, and the Republic of Georgia. We're actively working to save wild animals from commercial exploitation and the international wildlife trade. And we're funding ranger patrols in Bhutan to save the last of the world's remaining wild tigers.

Our efforts are working, but the illegal wildlife trade is still rampant. In fact, it's right up there with drug trafficking in terms of profitability.

We need to do more. And with your help today, we will:

Provide more patrols, equipment and secure habitat to protect tigers and elephants;
Train more customs and other border officials and pay for more anti-poaching patrols;
And care for more injured and confiscated animals.
The tiger cub is now safe and healthy, but so many more animals are still in danger. I know you feel the same way I do - that tiger cubs and baby sun bears and magnificent elephants are thinking, feeling animals that shouldn't suffer in agony for the profit of greedy poachers and smugglers.

Of course, you and I also know that it's not enough to simply feel bad for animals - we need action. We need to continue to protect, rescue, and care for suffering animals.

Please help me do that by making a donation to protect animals today.

Thank you for your gift on their behalf.

With deep gratitude,

Kelvin Alie
IFAW Director, Wildlife Trade Programme

P.S. This tiger cub was fortunately brought back to health. But there’s still so much to do. Please help suffering animals and take a stand against the cruel wildlife trade today.

1,000 Critically Endangered Turtles Swim To Freedom In Thailand (Video) Read more:

by Judy Molland

Good news for turtles! Recently Care2 reported that special sanctuaries for leatherback turtles had been set up both off the west coast of the U.S. and on a stretch of Puerto Rico’s north coast.

Now comes news that the Thai Navy has developed a special program to prevent the extinction of the critically endangered hawksbill turtle; since 1992, they have been releasing around 11,000 of these turtles every year.

As Commander Kitti Wongrak, Chief Public Relations officer for the Sea Turtle Conservation Centre, says in the video below:

“The number of sea turtles in Thailand and around the world is continually decreasing. Female turtles lay eggs on the beach where there are no human residents, but development projects and tourism expansion are threatening the species.”

The Thai navy collects hawksbill eggs laid in a conservation area, nurturing the baby turtles before releasing them back into nature.

You can watch as Thai Navy officials on August 1 released 980 of these critically endangered hawksbill turtles into the Gulf of Thailand at Sattahip, about 124 miles from Bangkok, as part of its campaign to protect them from extinction.

Bravo for the Thai Navy!


Read More :

Jane Goodall Live

Jane Goodall Live

09/27/2011

Join NCM Fathom and MDA Productions for a rare and intimate evening LIVE with Jane Goodall as we take a look at the private person behind the famous icon.

On September 27th at 8pm ET/7pm CT/ 6pm MT/8pm PT(tape delayed), for only one night, famed chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall will appear LIVE in hundreds of select movie theaters throughout the country for an exciting and unique event.

To submit your question(s) for Jane to answer on event night visit the JaneGoodalLive Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jane-Goodall-Live-Movie-Theater-Event/208096522581827)

This entirely unique movie theatre broadcast will highlight not only the 50 years of Jane Goodall's most extraordinary observations of the wild chimpanzees in Tanzania, but will provide rare insight into who Jane is today. This special LIVE event will be broadcast exclusively to a national audience in nearly 500 theatres and will unveil never-before-seen 45-year-old 8mm film footage shot in her first years in the African forest, and just recently discovered in Jane’s home attic in Britain as well as Jane and music legend Dave Matthews will talk about their experiences in the field. In addition, other celebrity friends like Academy Award Nominated and Winner Best Actress Charlize Theron will look with Jane at her first day ever in the forbidding jungle as a 26 year-old from Britain and will interact with the national audience attendees. This intimate setting will provide a look at the fun and playful Jane few get to see.

The event also features the national debut of the multi-million dollar cinemagraphic story "Jane's Journey," with appearances by Academy Award Winner for Best Supporting Actress Angelina Jolie and James Bond's Pierce Brosnan. This biography is a fascinating four-year look at Goodall's diverse days across three continents, viewing chimpanzees in the jungle and hippos in steamy pools in Tanzania, explosive, calving glaciers in Greenland, and meeting challenged youth on the Pine Ridge Native American reservation.

Jane Goodall is one of the most universally respected figures on earth. Her power has come from her unique vision and strong values. Now at 77--and still traveling 300 days a year-- her amazing body of work and accomplishments span 50 years and at this one night live event, you have a rare opportunity to look into the life of one the world's most extraordinary people.

TICKETING
Tickets are on sale on Now! Enter your zip code above to find your nearest participating theatre and purchase tickets today.

Join the Fathom Community to receive updates and alerts about events just like this one.

One Family Weathers Climate Change in Ethiopia

She opened her eyes, and it was all around her. Her clothes were drenched. She was no longer on her bed, but floating next to it, among rocks, sand, and what remained of her home.
“That’s when I realized the flood had overpowered the walls and swept us off the bed,” she said. “I started to shout and wake everybody up.”
Fatima and her husband, disoriented and barely awake, frantically fished for their six daughters in the rising tide. They waded through the water, climbed over rocks and hurried to Fatima’s father’s house. At first, they couldn’t find their infant, and Fatima feared she had been swept away in the flood. Thankfully, the girl survived, despite taking in a lot of water through her nose and mouth.
“I never thought that my family would be in danger because of a rain,” Fatima’s husband, Mohammed, said. “We’ve never experienced it. For the rain to come down that hard and flood my house with rocks and sand, and endanger my family… it never crossed my mind.”
Unfortunately, the flash flood Fatima and her family experienced is not an isolated incident. Across the world, temperature and precipitation patterns are changing, and severe storms and extreme weather events of all types are becoming more frequent. Consequences of climate change – such as floods, droughts, and declining agricultural production – affect everyone. But in many developing countries, these changes are making life especially hard for women and families.
Fatima’s family lost everything in the flood – including the stock of food they had been saving for the coming year. They now live with about 20 other families in a relocation camp of corrugated metal shacks covered with plastic tarps. The government has provided them with 15 kilograms of wheat per person. Everything else Fatima’s family has, down to the jerrycan that they use to gather water, is borrowed from relatives and neighbors.
Fatima feels lucky for surviving the flood, and for the generosity of others that is allowing them to scrape by. But she’s barely able to nurse her infant because of her own lack of nutrition, and she can’t afford both food for her daughters and the clothing they need to attend school. She and her husband don’t own their own land, so they work on other people’s farms for a share of the profits. Before the flood, they had been trying to have a son, despite the difficulty of providing for their family of eight on Mohammed’s salary as a laborer.
“I never thought about it before the flood,” Fatima said. “But after the flood, life became really hard. So I made family planning my goal. I got angry at myself for being poor and penniless. I said I’m done having babies from now on. My decision is based on how I will raise my children.”
In Ethiopia, the average woman has more than four children, with fertility rates highest among women living in rural areas, and women who are poor or uneducated. One-third of married women want to prevent pregnancy but lack modern contraception.
Mohammed said he’d heard about family planning before, but didn’t take it seriously. Now, he wishes he had, and supports his wife in her decision. “It would have been useful to us if we had taken spacing our children to heart,” he said. “Having to raise that many children and not having enough to eat takes its toll.”
For now, they take it day by day. Fatima nurses her baby and bakes injera bread in their temporary shelter. Mohammed works in the fields, but the unpredictable weather means the crops are suffering. And their daughters still have nightmares about the flood.
Mohammed used to wish for a boy. Now, he said, his priorities are simpler.
“From now on, we just wish that the children we have will grow up.”

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/one-family-weathers-climate-change-in-ethiopia.html#ixzz1ZBTu31bY

Gorrolla Flight-to-Freedom needs YOU!

Today I am asking you to help six orphaned gorillas take their final flight to freedom.

Pinga, Serufuli, Itebero, Ntabwoba, Dunia and Tumaini were all rescued from poachers and need our help to return to the wild.

They are between 5 and 9 years old and have outgrown their temporary facility in Rwanda. Now they must be flown back to their homeland in the Democratic Republic of Congo where, after a quarantine period to assure their readiness, they will be able to have access to native forest land to prepare for eventual freedom in the wild.

IFAW has pledged US$30,000 for this flight to freedom, supporting the renowned Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, who has built the wonderful GRACE Centre in the DRC, a state-of-the-art facility on 350 acres where the gorillas will learn how to survive in the wild in preparation for their long hoped for release.

What an incredible moment that will be!

I am asking you to be a partner in that moment - to help me sponsor one of the world's last gorillas back into the wild - where he will be free to create a family group, to have gorilla babies, to help increase the numbers of the last of these beautiful animals.

Your gift will also help us continue our critical work rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing animals in crisis.

Can you please donate today?