Natural Environment Blog

The Nature Conservancy is continuing to offer green gifts this year, with its Green Gift Guide. You may remember that it launched its Green Corporate Gift-Giving Center last year.

Included in this year’s gift guide are TNC’s “Top 5 Eco-Friendly Holiday Gifts”.

1. Adopt an Acre ($50 per acre)

   Help protect threatened habitats by adopting acres in critical locations around the world at only $50 per acre. Adopt an acre in one of the following places:

   • Africa’s Grasslands and Savannas
   • Austalia’s Gondwana Link
   • Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula
   • The Appalachians in the United States
   • Las Californias in the United States
   • Southern Coastal Plain Forests in the United States
   • Brazil Atlantic Forest
2. Plant a Tree in the Atlantic Forest ($1 per tree)

   One dollar plants one tree and helps support the Conservancy’s Plant a Billion Trees campaign in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil.

   When you give Plant a Billion Trees as a gift, you can select the number of trees you plant and to help save paper, you can set up an e-card to announce your gift on any day you choose.

3. Adopt a Coral Reef

   The Adopt a Coral Reef program raises funds for important coral reef projects in the Dominican Republic, Palau and Papua New Guinea. The program provides critical funds for the permanent protection and restoration of these reefs.

   As some of the most biodiverse and wondrous places in the world, coral reefs need our immediate attention. If the present rate of destruction continues, 70% of the world’s coral reefs will be destroyed by the year 2050.

4. Help Save the Northern Jaguar.

   Deforestation and hunting have led to the decline of the northern jaguar. Your gift helps protect the habitat that northern jaguars need to survive and flourish.

5. Give Clean Water

   Every time a free-flowing river is altered, a lake is fouled by toxic runoff or a wetland is drained, the ability of freshwater systems to sustain life is disrupted and weakened. Your gift will help to finance conservation activities such as restoring riparian forest, setting up environmental education projects, installing equipment that tracks pollution and sedimentation rates in rivers and streams and giving families peace of mind that the water they drink is safe and clean.

So there you have it. The top 5 eco-friendly holiday gifts from The Nature Conservancy. Be sure to check out their other gifts at the Green Gift Guide.

A giant bat, previously listed as critcally endangered on the IUCN Red List, has made a comeback from almost certain extinction in the tropical island of Zanzibar Tanzania.

The Pemba flying fox (Pteropus voeltzkowi) was first listed on the Red List as Endangered in 1990. Then in 1996, it was upgraded to Critically Endangered.

Around that time Fauna & Flora International (FFI), in partnership with Department of Commercial Crops, Fruits and Forestry (DCCFF), began a program to save the Pemba flying fox from extinction. Their program included an extensive education campaign, establishment of environmental clubs to protect roosts close to villages, meetings with hunters and key decision makers, and ongoing monitoring of the bat population.

The latest survey, initiated by FFI and carried out by Janine Robinson for the University of East Anglia, has found that there are now at least 22,000 Pemba flying foxes, but there could be as many as 35,600. 

As a result of the conservation program, the bat is no longer hunted down. In fact, many locals are joining community-led groups in an effort to help save the Pemba flying fox. 

The giant fruit bat, which has a wing span of up to 5.5 feet, was once considered a delicacy. As a result, it was almost hunted to extinction.  Traditionally, the Pemba flying fox was hunted using simple traps on long sticks. More recently though, shotguns were being used to kill the bats.

Because of the rising population of the Pemba flying fox, in 2004 it was downgraded to Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. And now that the population is thriving once again, FFI have now closed the project “confident in the dedication of the Forestry Department and local communities to protect this charismatic species”.

Two men have been sentenced to prison for dumping toxic waste two years ago that killed seventeen people in Abidjan, Western Africa.

Salomon Ugborugbo, 39, director of a local company was sentenced to 20 years in prison.  Ivorian shipping agent Desire Kouao was sentenced to 5 years in jail for his involvement as an accomplice.

But Greenpeace only partially happy with the verdict. They wanted to see Trafigura, the company who originally wanted the toxic waste disposed of, part of the criminal prosecution.

Trafigura chartered a boat containing 500 cubic meters of toxic waste to Abidjan, then hired a local company to dispose of the waste.

As a result, seventeen people died and more than 100,000 people sought medical attention. 

Marietta Harjono from Greenpeace said about the case ”This is nothing more than a showcase,” she said. “And we are very disappointed that Trafigura, the big fish that actually decided to dump the toxic waste, is not part of the criminal prosecution.”

Trafigura had originally tried disposing of the waste in the Netherlands before sending it to Africa. As a result, the company faces criminal charges in the Netherlands.

Global warming is definitely having an effect on Mount Kilimanjaro. Africa’s highest mountain, and one of it’s most famous natural landmarks, is losing it’s ice. In fact, at the current rate, it will have no ice left by 2020.

82% of Kilimanjaro’s ice has already melted since 1912. The most alarming thing is that a third of this has melted in the last 12 years. Over the next 10-15 years, we’re going to see this snow capped mountain turn a different color!

Scientists suspect that less snow on Kilimanjaro during the rainy season decreases the surface reflectiveness, leading to higher heat absorption. This in turn, results in more melted ice.

Trekkers often comment about witnessing large chunks of ice falling off as they make their way up or down the mountain.

OK, the term “global warming” refers to the whole world heating up. But, the world isn’t just heating up at the same rate all over. Some parts are heating up at a greater rate than others.

The Arctic is being hit the hardest - it’s heating up at up to 3 times the rate of other parts of the world! The Arctic has increased in temperature by 2.7 degrees fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) over the last 30 years.

Interestingly, according to this heat chart of 2005, some parts of Africa are heating up at a similar rate to the Arctic. Note that this chart is showing the rate of the change in temperature - not the actual temperature.