Intelligent Giving is a website that provides summary data about charities. It is critical, and certainly aims to keep us all on our toes. While there is room for improvement in the way the WLT reports its activities, I was very please to read the following description of the WLT
It's clear that the purchases involve plenty of hands-on evaluation before they go ahead, but the solid annual report and patronage by David Attenborough suggest to us targeted and efficient work.
Other charities carrying out similar work to the WLT, did not come out of Intelligent Giving's evaluation too well.
With all the publicity generated by the BBC Wildlife Fund, and the BBC's Saving Planet Earth season, the WLT has seen a massive interest in its activities, and in particular corporate donations have risen. And this is despite the fact that the WLT is not one of the recipient charities of the BBC Campaign. As one of the Trustees of the BBC Wildlife Fund, I will be closely involved in the disbursement of funds, and am really encouraged by the huge increase in interest in wildlife conservation that this latest David Attenborough series has initiated. Paul Appleby, Neil Nightingale and all the rest of the BBC Natural History Unit behind this innovative series are to be heartily congratulated. Let's hope it becomes an annual event.
Thursday, 28 June 2007
Sunday, 24 June 2007
BBC Saving Planet Earth
Today sees the launch, by our Patron, Sir David Attenborough, of the BBC's Saving Planet Earth series. And I was very pleased indeed to read Sir David's quotes in the Radio Times, giving emphasis to the human population problem.
The intention of the Saving Planet Earth series is to raise public awareness of worldwide conservation issues. But in addition, it will also be the first time that the BBC has used a series such as this to raise funds to support conservation. Using the precedents of Children in Need and Comic Relief, appeals will be broadcast in association with the transmission of programmes. http://www.bbc.co.uk/savingplanetearth/
I was honoured to be asked to be a Trustee of the new BBC Wildlife Fund, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/savingplanetearth/aboutus/thetrustees.shtml)
which has been established to gather the funds, and later to decide which projects to support. Of course we have no idea how much the BBC WF will raise, but it could be significant amounts of funds, which will enable us to give support to a wide range of projects. Interestingly the WLT is receiving more enquiries than ever from businesses wanting to support conservation through the World Land Trust. But as I emphasised at our Annual General Meeting, last week, it is the individual supporters that give the WLT its strength. All of you out there in cyberspace reading this blog, are important to us, whether or not you donate regularly, occasionally or never. If it is the latter, I hope you will spread the word.
Last week the Trustees agreed to fund several more land purchases -- one in the tropical forests of the Dry Chaco, and another parcel of land in the Paraguayan Pantanal, completing the first phase of the Three Giants Reserve. And Ocean Contract Cleaning donated £50,000 to our projects in Paraguay. The WLT is really begining to grow, but we still need more support -- forest continue to disappear at an alarming rate, so the more we can save, the better for the future of our planet.
The intention of the Saving Planet Earth series is to raise public awareness of worldwide conservation issues. But in addition, it will also be the first time that the BBC has used a series such as this to raise funds to support conservation. Using the precedents of Children in Need and Comic Relief, appeals will be broadcast in association with the transmission of programmes. http://www.bbc.co.uk/savingplanetearth/
I was honoured to be asked to be a Trustee of the new BBC Wildlife Fund, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/savingplanetearth/aboutus/thetrustees.shtml)
which has been established to gather the funds, and later to decide which projects to support. Of course we have no idea how much the BBC WF will raise, but it could be significant amounts of funds, which will enable us to give support to a wide range of projects. Interestingly the WLT is receiving more enquiries than ever from businesses wanting to support conservation through the World Land Trust. But as I emphasised at our Annual General Meeting, last week, it is the individual supporters that give the WLT its strength. All of you out there in cyberspace reading this blog, are important to us, whether or not you donate regularly, occasionally or never. If it is the latter, I hope you will spread the word.
Last week the Trustees agreed to fund several more land purchases -- one in the tropical forests of the Dry Chaco, and another parcel of land in the Paraguayan Pantanal, completing the first phase of the Three Giants Reserve. And Ocean Contract Cleaning donated £50,000 to our projects in Paraguay. The WLT is really begining to grow, but we still need more support -- forest continue to disappear at an alarming rate, so the more we can save, the better for the future of our planet.
Monday, 11 June 2007
Cool Earth
I have been bombarded with supporters asking what Cool Earth is all about. When David Milliband and Frank Field announced this 'new idea' last year at the time of the Labour Party Conference, I wrote and told them the World Land Trust had been doing precisely what they were proposing for nearly 20 years.
Then with a great song and dance it was announced that this 'new initiative' was going ahead in the the Sun newspaper of 6 June. It's great that more people are following the WLT's model -- after 20 years of hard work, it is now becoming mainstream to conservation. Yet I recall a time when most of the big conservation charities would not lend their support -- that is why the WLT was formed. The WLT has always prided itself on its transparency, and clarity of its projects, as well as the science behind them. We also aim to be innovative, and were one of the first conservation charities to fully utilise the Internet for fund raising and the first to become involved with carbon sequestration. With everyone jumping on the carbon bandwagon, the Trust will continue to maintain its integrity, and put biodiversity first.
So to all those that ask, we did know about Cool Earth, and the founders were aware of the World Land Trust (they must have been, because if you type into Google buy an acre of rainforest, guess which organisation comes up top). Why they felt it necessary to found another organisation, only they can answer. I sincerely hope that they live up to their promises, but until their accounts are published there is no way of telling. I suppose I always have an inherent distrust of anything hyped by governments, and a launch on a grand scale makes one wonder where all the funds are going. But we should give any initiative like this the benefit of the doubt. But as I always advise any donor to any charity, it is essential you look at the accounts and the track record before committing funds.
Then with a great song and dance it was announced that this 'new initiative' was going ahead in the the Sun newspaper of 6 June. It's great that more people are following the WLT's model -- after 20 years of hard work, it is now becoming mainstream to conservation. Yet I recall a time when most of the big conservation charities would not lend their support -- that is why the WLT was formed. The WLT has always prided itself on its transparency, and clarity of its projects, as well as the science behind them. We also aim to be innovative, and were one of the first conservation charities to fully utilise the Internet for fund raising and the first to become involved with carbon sequestration. With everyone jumping on the carbon bandwagon, the Trust will continue to maintain its integrity, and put biodiversity first.
So to all those that ask, we did know about Cool Earth, and the founders were aware of the World Land Trust (they must have been, because if you type into Google buy an acre of rainforest, guess which organisation comes up top). Why they felt it necessary to found another organisation, only they can answer. I sincerely hope that they live up to their promises, but until their accounts are published there is no way of telling. I suppose I always have an inherent distrust of anything hyped by governments, and a launch on a grand scale makes one wonder where all the funds are going. But we should give any initiative like this the benefit of the doubt. But as I always advise any donor to any charity, it is essential you look at the accounts and the track record before committing funds.
Tuesday, 5 June 2007
Aid charities: A receiver's perspective
The following was forwarded to me from Maneka Gandhi from India.
It is unedited, and a personal opinion, not that of the WLT, though there is much in it that I personally believe needs serious consideration.
Unfortunately not many of the people actually involved in receiving aid of this sort have access to the internet, so their views are not easily obtained. But it does strike a chord -- I know one of the smaller organisations marketting goats does pay its director around £80,000 a year -- which is pretty galling when you know what that could achieve if it was paid direct to Indian charities.
Nothing irritates me more than the charities abroad that collect money and purport to give it to women or children or for animals in Asia or Africa. Very little reaches the country or the cause for which it is meant - I have seen this happen in the animal world so many times. Most of it goes towards their own "infrastructure", which means rent, staff, travel and "investigation".One organization ran a campaign for many years for saving bears in India . It came to India six times a year to see the situation of bears. It hired consultants from Australia and Argentina. No money came to India. I complained to Charity Commission of that country and it was discovered the fine print said that the organization could do what it wanted with the donated money. Finally, the head of the organization was investigated and removed. A little money was sent to us and a small bear sanctuary was built.
A horse care organization came to India after running a campaign abroad on how badly Indian horses were treated. They brought money, gave it to a lawyer who bought a house and car with it and disappeared. Now it teaches about five farriers a year and that's it. But their international campaign for money continues.
Yet another organization came in to keep donkeys. In 10 years they have kept 70 donkeys in their enclosure and treated another 50. They come from Europe at least once a month, three days at a time, and stay in five star hotels to check whether their Indian doctors are working.
Recently, a watch company held an elephant polo match. The company gave half a million pounds to an international organization that collects money to save Indian elephants for a foreign charity. The Indian elephant NGO that had been reluctantly roped into this illegal and unhappy venture got 8,000 pounds with a promise of 25,000 more. That's it.
Now Oxfam and Christian Aid have come out with their own scam. For anyone who wants to feel good by giving a present to someone who has everything already, you can buy a goat in their name or a donkey, pig, chicken, calf or rabbit. Once the donor pays, the animal is sent to a "developing" country. The scheme is sold by describing it as a "real statement to world development and poverty alleviation". There are 750 Oxfam shops in England. These charities are wooing the ethical shopper with pictures of goats wearing Christmas hats and promises of helping the poor in developing countries. According to environmentalists, it is madness to send goats, cows and chickens to areas where they will add to the problems of drought and desertification. Goats have a devastating effect because each goat eats all the grass and shrubbery on two hectares of land a year. A goat destroys the fertility of land and any milk or dung it may give is very little compared to the havoc it wreaks. Within two years, the people who have goats have an even poorer lifestyle - there are village quarrels on community grazing; the children are taken out of school to graze the goats, water becomes even scarcer.
All farmed animals require proper nourishment, large quantities of water, shelter from extremes and veterinary care. Such resources are in critically short supply in much of Africa and Asia . These programs are irresponsible and misguided. Instead of helping impoverished communities in the developing world flourish it is spreading disease, damaging the environment and wiping out vital water supplies. Two goats can reduce the amount of farmland available to local people and result in villages becoming deserted while a cow, at £750, will drink up to 90 liters of water every single day.
Oxfam and Christian Aid now say that its critics have misunderstood its program. The purchase of a goat, the charities said, did not necessarily mean that a goat was bought! The money goes into a farming and livestock fund to be distributed by local project managers. This means, basically, that more staffers will be given money. If people have paid money for 5,000 animals, less than 200 will actually reach - I can bet on it. This is simply cynical exploitation of animals and poor people. There is a huge appetite for ethical gifts - it has trebled in the last three years. It is easy to use India or Africa as a way to raise money. But basically it is a fundraising mechanism for charities - with about 10 per cent reaching the designated country.
I don't know if this 10% figure is correct for aid charities -- it certainly is not true for the WLT -- we aim to get over 85% of our restricted funds to the actual projects, and the spent in the destination country. It would be interesting to know more about the actual figures. And I certainly would not endorse the descriptions of Oxfam running fundraising 'scams'. I only publish this because it does give a sense of how some people living in recipient countries perceive aid. Normally we only see pictures of happy smiling recipients -- well you would wouldn't you -- and the voices of the critics are rarely heard.
It is unedited, and a personal opinion, not that of the WLT, though there is much in it that I personally believe needs serious consideration.
Unfortunately not many of the people actually involved in receiving aid of this sort have access to the internet, so their views are not easily obtained. But it does strike a chord -- I know one of the smaller organisations marketting goats does pay its director around £80,000 a year -- which is pretty galling when you know what that could achieve if it was paid direct to Indian charities.
Nothing irritates me more than the charities abroad that collect money and purport to give it to women or children or for animals in Asia or Africa. Very little reaches the country or the cause for which it is meant - I have seen this happen in the animal world so many times. Most of it goes towards their own "infrastructure", which means rent, staff, travel and "investigation".One organization ran a campaign for many years for saving bears in India . It came to India six times a year to see the situation of bears. It hired consultants from Australia and Argentina. No money came to India. I complained to Charity Commission of that country and it was discovered the fine print said that the organization could do what it wanted with the donated money. Finally, the head of the organization was investigated and removed. A little money was sent to us and a small bear sanctuary was built.
A horse care organization came to India after running a campaign abroad on how badly Indian horses were treated. They brought money, gave it to a lawyer who bought a house and car with it and disappeared. Now it teaches about five farriers a year and that's it. But their international campaign for money continues.
Yet another organization came in to keep donkeys. In 10 years they have kept 70 donkeys in their enclosure and treated another 50. They come from Europe at least once a month, three days at a time, and stay in five star hotels to check whether their Indian doctors are working.
Recently, a watch company held an elephant polo match. The company gave half a million pounds to an international organization that collects money to save Indian elephants for a foreign charity. The Indian elephant NGO that had been reluctantly roped into this illegal and unhappy venture got 8,000 pounds with a promise of 25,000 more. That's it.
Now Oxfam and Christian Aid have come out with their own scam. For anyone who wants to feel good by giving a present to someone who has everything already, you can buy a goat in their name or a donkey, pig, chicken, calf or rabbit. Once the donor pays, the animal is sent to a "developing" country. The scheme is sold by describing it as a "real statement to world development and poverty alleviation". There are 750 Oxfam shops in England. These charities are wooing the ethical shopper with pictures of goats wearing Christmas hats and promises of helping the poor in developing countries. According to environmentalists, it is madness to send goats, cows and chickens to areas where they will add to the problems of drought and desertification. Goats have a devastating effect because each goat eats all the grass and shrubbery on two hectares of land a year. A goat destroys the fertility of land and any milk or dung it may give is very little compared to the havoc it wreaks. Within two years, the people who have goats have an even poorer lifestyle - there are village quarrels on community grazing; the children are taken out of school to graze the goats, water becomes even scarcer.
All farmed animals require proper nourishment, large quantities of water, shelter from extremes and veterinary care. Such resources are in critically short supply in much of Africa and Asia . These programs are irresponsible and misguided. Instead of helping impoverished communities in the developing world flourish it is spreading disease, damaging the environment and wiping out vital water supplies. Two goats can reduce the amount of farmland available to local people and result in villages becoming deserted while a cow, at £750, will drink up to 90 liters of water every single day.
Oxfam and Christian Aid now say that its critics have misunderstood its program. The purchase of a goat, the charities said, did not necessarily mean that a goat was bought! The money goes into a farming and livestock fund to be distributed by local project managers. This means, basically, that more staffers will be given money. If people have paid money for 5,000 animals, less than 200 will actually reach - I can bet on it. This is simply cynical exploitation of animals and poor people. There is a huge appetite for ethical gifts - it has trebled in the last three years. It is easy to use India or Africa as a way to raise money. But basically it is a fundraising mechanism for charities - with about 10 per cent reaching the designated country.
I don't know if this 10% figure is correct for aid charities -- it certainly is not true for the WLT -- we aim to get over 85% of our restricted funds to the actual projects, and the spent in the destination country. It would be interesting to know more about the actual figures. And I certainly would not endorse the descriptions of Oxfam running fundraising 'scams'. I only publish this because it does give a sense of how some people living in recipient countries perceive aid. Normally we only see pictures of happy smiling recipients -- well you would wouldn't you -- and the voices of the critics are rarely heard.
Monday, 21 May 2007
Pollinators under threat and Jenga theory of biodiversity.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service Endangered Species Bulletin, Highlights for 2006 includes a review of endangered species that are important as pollinators. The materialist justification for conserving wildlife -- for reasons such as production of medicines from rainforest plants -- is used commonly enough, but it is relatively unusual to see an article focusing on pollinators. And yet without pollinators hundreds of plant species might be endangered, including crops.
What is often not fully appreciated by the general public, is that many plants are reliant on only a very few species of insects, birds or mammals as pollinators; in some cases only a single species.
This brings me back to the Jenga theory of biodiversity conservation. Once you start removing the pieces from the Jenga tower of biodiversity, you can carry on removing individual pieces for quite a long time. And we have been doing so. But there comes a point where removing one more piece, even from somewhere near the top, can cause total collapse. And we don't know how near we are to that point. But I have little doubt, knowing how many of the pieces are missing, or rather now so rare as to be effectively missing, that collapse is a real prospect. In fact to take the analogy a step further, for every hundred or so pieces of biodiversity we remove from the Jenga tower, we are replacing them with a single piece made of lead, representing a load of extra humans, or cows. Or chickens. Or pigs. Or fields of oilseed rape etc etc etc. Thus making the Jenga tower incredibly unstable. The end result is unequivocally predictable.
And the human population, and its demand for increased animal production, is barely mentioned; and many of the aid agencies trying to wipe out poverty in the tropics don't even have policies on birth control.
What is often not fully appreciated by the general public, is that many plants are reliant on only a very few species of insects, birds or mammals as pollinators; in some cases only a single species.
This brings me back to the Jenga theory of biodiversity conservation. Once you start removing the pieces from the Jenga tower of biodiversity, you can carry on removing individual pieces for quite a long time. And we have been doing so. But there comes a point where removing one more piece, even from somewhere near the top, can cause total collapse. And we don't know how near we are to that point. But I have little doubt, knowing how many of the pieces are missing, or rather now so rare as to be effectively missing, that collapse is a real prospect. In fact to take the analogy a step further, for every hundred or so pieces of biodiversity we remove from the Jenga tower, we are replacing them with a single piece made of lead, representing a load of extra humans, or cows. Or chickens. Or pigs. Or fields of oilseed rape etc etc etc. Thus making the Jenga tower incredibly unstable. The end result is unequivocally predictable.
And the human population, and its demand for increased animal production, is barely mentioned; and many of the aid agencies trying to wipe out poverty in the tropics don't even have policies on birth control.
Tuesday, 15 May 2007
The Rape of East Anglia
The weekend before last was one of glorious sunshine, with evenings almost as warm as June. But I and thousands of others could not really totally enjoy it without resorting to drugs.
This is because East Anglia (and many other parts of the UK for all I know) is awash with oilseed rape. And this gives me severe respiratory problesms, as I am a chronic hayfever sufferer. So I have to take expensive, prescription drugs. So what is the real cost of this subsidised crop?
The Government is encouraging and subsidising farmers to grow huge quantities, in order to promote 'renewable' sources of energy -- biodiesel. But what are the true energy costs of growing and processing oilseed rape? The huge quantities of pesticides, and herbicides associated with growing the vast monocultures that now sweep across the landscape. The loss of biodiversity, already reduced to less than that of a supermerket car park; both are relatively easy to measure. And should be.
But what are the health costs? And is it right that I, and thousands of others, should have to resort to taking drugs, in order to be able to carry out a normal day's work, so that agri-business can ruin even more of the countryside?
It is claimed that rape does not actually cause hayfever, but only affects those with multiple sensitivity. Like me. But whereas normally I suffer from hayfever in a relatively mild form, come the season of the rape flowering, I am suffering from breathing difficulties and streaming eyes, and have to dose myself with steroids in order to work.
I have seen papers demonstrating that biofuels, such as biodiesel from rape, are energy efficient -- but these never take into account the fact that in order to grow them, land has to be taken out of food production, and that the food then has to be produced in other parts of the world and imported, with all the associated energy costs.
Any other thoughts?
This is because East Anglia (and many other parts of the UK for all I know) is awash with oilseed rape. And this gives me severe respiratory problesms, as I am a chronic hayfever sufferer. So I have to take expensive, prescription drugs. So what is the real cost of this subsidised crop?
The Government is encouraging and subsidising farmers to grow huge quantities, in order to promote 'renewable' sources of energy -- biodiesel. But what are the true energy costs of growing and processing oilseed rape? The huge quantities of pesticides, and herbicides associated with growing the vast monocultures that now sweep across the landscape. The loss of biodiversity, already reduced to less than that of a supermerket car park; both are relatively easy to measure. And should be.
But what are the health costs? And is it right that I, and thousands of others, should have to resort to taking drugs, in order to be able to carry out a normal day's work, so that agri-business can ruin even more of the countryside?
It is claimed that rape does not actually cause hayfever, but only affects those with multiple sensitivity. Like me. But whereas normally I suffer from hayfever in a relatively mild form, come the season of the rape flowering, I am suffering from breathing difficulties and streaming eyes, and have to dose myself with steroids in order to work.
I have seen papers demonstrating that biofuels, such as biodiesel from rape, are energy efficient -- but these never take into account the fact that in order to grow them, land has to be taken out of food production, and that the food then has to be produced in other parts of the world and imported, with all the associated energy costs.
Any other thoughts?
Bio-ethanol, and mass starvation
The US, at long last has finally decided that it has to produce renewable energy. And it has also realised that the huge grain surplus it produces is a good source of bio-ethanol. President Bush in his State of the Union address set a production goal for 2017 of 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels. That will need one hell of a lot of grain -- and it has been pointed out that the impact of this one the world's poorest countries will be devastating. This is because the world's food aid programmes generally have fixed budgets, consequently if the US grain surplus dwindles, the market price of what's left will go through the roof, and the funds available to supple the grain to the world's poorest countries will not be sufficient.
And the knock-on does not stop there. If the US finds a ready market for its grain surpluses, and the UK starts growing more and more rapeseed, this will mean that the developed world will import more cheap food from developing countries. Overall this will undoubtedly push world food prices up. The increase will have very little impact on the wealthy nations of the world, where the cost of food is a negligible proportion of the day to day living costs. But in the poorest countries it will be devastating -- forcing millions into starvation.
And this is all without even considering the ecological consequences, of converting more marginal lands in the tropics for intensive agriculture, its use of pesticides, water for irrigations, etc etc etc.
As ever, politicians and economists look at short-term fixes, with little regard for long-term solutions.
And the knock-on does not stop there. If the US finds a ready market for its grain surpluses, and the UK starts growing more and more rapeseed, this will mean that the developed world will import more cheap food from developing countries. Overall this will undoubtedly push world food prices up. The increase will have very little impact on the wealthy nations of the world, where the cost of food is a negligible proportion of the day to day living costs. But in the poorest countries it will be devastating -- forcing millions into starvation.
And this is all without even considering the ecological consequences, of converting more marginal lands in the tropics for intensive agriculture, its use of pesticides, water for irrigations, etc etc etc.
As ever, politicians and economists look at short-term fixes, with little regard for long-term solutions.
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