I’ve worked with The WILD Foundation for almost 3 years and one major thing that I have noticed in that time is the power of face-to-face interactions to effect change in the environmental space. The internet has given us all incredible tools for communication, but I think it’s important to never forget the power of many minds all gathering in one spot.  This is when real progress is made! I believe face-to-face formal and informal interactions have powers that all of our digital communication tools cannot yet rival. This is one of the main reasons why I am so excited to be a part of WILD9 this fall. It will be my first World Wilderness Congress, and I’ve heard so much about the accomplishments and interactions that have taken place at each of the previous 8 Congress.  WILD9 promises to be unique, interesting, interactive and a huge success for wilderness world-wide!

WILD9, the 9th World Wilderness Congress will convene in Merida, Mexico from 6-13 November 2009, in the heart of the Mayan world.  Having convened 8 times on 5 continents, WILD9 will be the first ever WWC in Latin America.  Many of the world’s leading conservation experts, politicians, academics, corporations, artists, native peoples, students and many others will gather to debate and act upon the most urgent environmental issues of our time such as climate change, water and more.  Some of the top confirmed presenters are Dr. Jane Goodall, Russell Mittermeier (President of Conservation International), the Indian economist Pavan Sukdev and Stephan Harding, an expert on Gaia theory.

Among its rigorous conservation objectives, WILD9 is slated to be the largest gathering of conservation photography ever in Latin America, with participation from many of the top conservation photographers around the world.  I’ve had the pleasure of featuring some of these talented photographers on our blog over the past year, and you can check out some of their photos here. Each day the plenary sessions will feature keynote presentation from top-level conservation photographers including: James Balog, Art Wolfe, Thomas Mangelson, David Doubiliet and Nick Nichols.  Many other members of the International League of Conservation Photographers will be in attendance, participating in and leading workshops, seminars and panels discussions.

The WILD9 program is filled with exciting presentations, workshops, local excursions and training sessions and there are many major conservation objectives including new wilderness designations, the first international agreement on wilderness and more! Registration is open to the public and special discount apply for delegates from certain regions, students and for those who are able to register prior to 1 August.  Looking forward to seeing you in Merida!

Article by by Emily Loose

Emily Loose is the Director of Communications for The WILD Foundation. She can be contacted there, or found on Twitter @WILDfoundation.

Find out what the UK wildlife want from Santa this Christmas.

Breathing Places is an important project about getting involved in conservation and protecting wildlife in the UK. I’m not sure that these animals are 100% anatomically correct though….

Houses, flats, shopping centres and commercial properties are being built everywhere these days. You would think that nowhere was safe from development!

Think again! Organisations such as the Wildlife Trusts are reviewing planning thousands and thousands of planning applications in order to try and protect greenbelt and even brown field sites from being unnecessarily or unsympathetically being developed on.In addition to protecting such sites, various Wildlife Trusts are also purchasing land in order to transform them into wildlife havens for the benefit of people and wildlife. For example through a recent fundraising campaign Gwent Wildlife Trust managed to raise over £525,000 in order purchase a 104 acre dairy pasture in Penallt, near Monmouth, South Wales, UK.

Whilst this piece of land is currently extremely wildlife poor it was an essential purchase for Gwent Wildlife Trust in terms of the site acting as a wildlife corridor between a wildflower meadow at the Trust’s Pentwyn Farm reserve and a woodland habitat of the Wye Valley.

When transforming the site, Gwent Wildlife Trust will be stepping back in time to the stone ages in order to create to a traditional ‘open wildwood forest’ of neotholic Wales’. It is estimated that the project will take up to 25 years however upon completion it will be rich in biodiversity and I think truly majestic.When thinking of Wales, you may already imagine a Country rich in wildlife however intensive farmland still dominates areas of Wales, leaving vulnerable patches of isolated wildlife rich grassland and woodland. Instead of fragmented nature reserves it is vital that wildlife corridors are established.

As a child I spent a couple of wonderful holidays in the Welsh countryside, to me Wales was a beautiful and magical place thus I am delighted that strong progress is being made by the Wildlife Trust in order to create a truly wildlife rich Wales.

If you would like to help Gwent Wildlife Trust with enhancing and protecting South Wales then why not:

- Click here to donate money to help them transform the dairy pasture

- Click here to find out how you can help them campaign against the building of a new toll motorway across the Gwent Levels

Another positive news post following on from the last positive conservation news post titled ‘Endangered monkeys found in Vietnam’.

The Berkshire, Buckinghamshires & Oxon Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) has managed to raise enough money (£850,000) from a successful public appeal to be able to buy a piece of precious floodplain meadow habitat at Gallows Bridge Farm on the Bucks/Oxon border.

The floodplain which is home to a range of threatened species including curlew birds will be restored by the Wildlife Trust and transformed into a wetland habitat. This new properly managed wetland will also help local people by acting as a natural flood defence, absorbing water which could otherwise cause problems downstream.

For further details about this project please click here to be redirected to the BBOWT Wildlife Trust website.

Photograph: Curlew image copyright David Kjaer

Good things do happen!

We all know that good things happen,  however we very rarely hear about it as it gets lost amongst the doom and gloom stories.  So following in the footsteps of GGG Editor Henriette who pledged in her Inspiration = Happy post to write positively,  I thought that I would try and start doing some positive blogging too. Starting with this story!  By the way although the story is not exactly breaking news,  I thought it was a good place to start.

Endangered Monkeys Found in Vietnam

Scientists from the World Wide Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Conservation International,  discovered the largest known population of rare Grey-Shanked Doucs in a remote part of Vietnam.  The Grey-Shanked Doucs is considered one of the 25 most endangered primates.  The species has only been recorded in the five central Vietnamese provinces.

Thus the discovery of over 100 of these primates is fantastic news! It really raises hopes that endangered monkeys can be saved from extinction.  What’s more as only a small part of the area has been surveyed,  scientists believe that there may be significantly more Grey-Shanked Doucs living in the adjacent forest.  Lets hope that there is!

Photo Source: Funbury’s Flikr Photostream

All over the world dedicated volunteers help with important conservation projects ranging from planting trees, scrub bashing to scuba diving!

Yes, scuba diving. In addition to land based projects, conservation and environmental charities are now benefiting from volunteers who are helping to collect important biological data from the ocean.

The Ocean

Our planet is 70% ocean, yet historically we have explored very little of this vast and important natural habitat.  What is know though is that in some areas of the sea, marine life is on the decline, this includes areas around the UK.  I have highlighted loss of marine life in some of my previous posts including: Can we have the Bill please and Cycling to save our seas – Update.

Cycling to save our seas

You may recall that back in August,  I raised money for the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust through a sponsored bike ride (reported about in the post titled Cycling to save our seas – Update).

As a thank you for raising this money,  the Marine Officer at the Hampshire and IOW Wildlife Trust ‘Vicky Swales’ invited me and my fiancé to join her and a team of volunteer divers on a Seasearch expedition.

Seasearch

Seasearch is a national project for volunteer scuba divers who have an interest in what they’re seeing under water,  want to learn more and want to help protect the marine environment.  The main aim is to map out the various types of sea bed found in the near-shore zone around the whole of the British Isles. In addition they record what lives in each area, establishing the richest sites for marine life,  the sites where there are problems and the sites which need protection including along the Hampshire and IOW coast.

The Hampshire and IOW coast

The marine habitats off the Hampshire and Isle of Wight coasts are diverse,  with wrecks,  rocky reefs and sand and gravel dunes.  They play host to a wealth of marine life from sea squirts and sponges to corals and cuttlefish.

Due to commercial dredging and over fishing,  areas along the coast have been affected. In order to determine the extent of the damage,  the Hampshire and IOW Wildlife Trust undertake underwater biological surveys as part of the seasearch project.

Seasearch expedition: 21/10/07

When Vicky invited me to join the Seasearch team as an observer for the day,  I was really pleased as it was a chance to see marine conservation in action.  The expedition was to be the last of the year and we were very fortunate that the weather was on our side, the sun was shining and the waves were calm.

In total there was five volunteer divers,  three observers (including me and my fiancé), Vicky and the Skipper Steve Dimmer.   After health and safety instructions and a lot of paperwork (all of which is vital) we set sail onto the Solent.

When we got to the first dive spot,  all of the divers were prepped by Vicky and then they got on with getting all of their scuba gear on.  If you have ever seen divers get ready, especially when they are going into cold water then you will realise it’s not a simple process.  They have to do a lot of checking to make sure that all their equipment is in full working condition.

The divers went down in a group of two and a group of three,  each team had a camera and they all had a waterproof note board in which to write their observations. Unfortunately visibility was not fantastic on the first dive however one group did encounter an eel. 

The second dive was in shallower water and visibility was much stronger.  The divers were very pleased as the area was quite diverse with marine life ranging from algae to even a Bloody Henry Starfish (Henricia oculata).   All of the data collected on this Seasearch expedition and previous ones will be loaded into a database so that the Wildlife Trust can identify important sites and species around our shores.

Getting Involved

If you are not all ready, then I highly recommend that GGG readers become involved in conservation work as it is extremely rewarding and provides essential support to conservation and environmental charities.  For example all of the Seasearch volunteers who I spoke to thoroughly enjoyed what they did and were delighted to combine their scuba dive hobby with important conservation work.

Seasearch are always looking for qualified divers to help with underwater surveying, thus if you are interested and would like further information about Seasearch please click here.

If you are not a qualified diver and would like to help with marine surveying, then you could assist with Shoresearch. For further details about Shoresearch please click here.

I will post details about further conservation volunteering experiences and opportunities in future posts.  However in the mean time if you use the social networking site Facebook and would like to learn about conservation volunteering or share your experiences then please join the ‘I’m a conservation volunteer’ group.