2014: The conservation dilemma.

With the end of the year fast approching, its now time to take stock on what we have gained – and lost – in the world of wildlife conservation. Almost one year ago today, I published a similar ‘stocktake’ of wildlife news, titled “2013: A Loss For Conservation”, unfortunately, in the year since posting, conservation biology still has little to celebrate.

Across Africa, our land giants are still facing extreme pressure from highly organised poaching. 2013 saw an average of 2.6 Rhino being poached daily in South Africa, with the total for the year falling at 1004. To see now that – for the 8^th consecutive year – poaching levels have now exceeded the previous year, is truly heart breaking. The total for 2014 is already around 1150 Rhino, with an average of 3.2 Rhino falling per day. This figure is now above the average natural rate of reproduction and is expected to continue its unsustinable increase.

Elephants have also been hit by a similar poaching surge. Across central Africa approximately 35,000 elephants have been lost to poaching this year, equating to one elephant every 15 minutes. This high level poaching seems to be largely restricted to eastern Africa, with Tanzania itself losing roughly 10,000 of these Elephants. Furthermore, wildlife tracking of ivory has once again been linked to the terrorist organisation Al-Shabab, who are responsible for a series of attacks across Somalia. Al-Shabab has a loose alliance with Al-Qaeda – also believed to benefit from illegal ivory trafficking.

For 2014, one of the most troubling statistics produced, was that of total biomass loss. In a report produced by the WWF incorporating 10,000 wildlife populations (representing 3000 species), researchers found a 52% average loss of wildlife globally. This figure is not a measure of the number of species, but total number of wildlife, indicating that since 1970, half of the worlds wildlife has been loss. Individual examples support this contention, with many species losing upwards of 90% of natural homeranges – due to human expansion.

The IUCN – responsible for assessment and categorising of species – have released figures relating to species ‘changing red list status 2013-2014’. Redlisted species are re-assessed often to observe any increase/decrease in their conservation status. Unfortunately, the majority of status changes between 2013-2014 were species moving up the red list, becoming more endangered. To view this report yourself, please follow: http://cmsdocs.s3.amazonaws.com/summarystats/2014_3_Summary_Stats_Page_Documents/2014_3_RL_Stats_Table_7.pdf .

So what is a species worth? Wildlife trafficking is now the third most lucrative illegal product, following weapons and drugs. At an estimated US $19 Billion annually, this has become a huge, highly organised industry with by far greater funds and support than the conservationists trying to fight it. Havoscope is an online source of black market prices, providing the average price of illegal products sold. Through the collection of public information and government reports, black market prices of trafficked wildlife can now be examined. For instance, the endangered Tiger (with an estimated 3200 left in the wild) has a market price of $50,000 alive, or $5000 dead. The pangolin, which recently has been labeled as the highest trafficked animal is worth $300 per kg of meat or $1000 alive. The most valuable wildlife commodity apppears to be the gorilla, fetching an average $400,000 US dollars on the black market. For the full gruesome run down of wildlife prices: http://www.havocscope.com/exotic-animals-for-sale/

The figures seen above are just a small example of what wildlife conservationists are now facing. It has become clear that global wildlife trafficking was largely under valued and has been allowed to thrive for far to long. The threat from this highly organised system is now acknowledged and since been labeled as the greatest issue in wildlife conservation of our time. Wildlife trafficking is now being fought on every level, from anti-poaching units across wild Africa, to trafficking kingpins in the high court. Unfortunately however, the war for wildlife is far from over, and many species will reach extinction before human greed is put to rest.

Statistics used in this blog have been collected from a series of sources. Ive tried to avoid in-text references to ease the flow. However, if you wish to follow up these statistics, you can find them here:

IUCN: http://www.iucnredlist.org/about/summary-statistics#Tables_5_6

WWF: http://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/living-planet-report-2014

Pangolin/Tiger: http://www.unitedforwildlife.org/#!/the-facts

Rhino: http://stoprhinopoaching.com

Elephant: http://www.wcs.org

Attached also, is a link to our charity page, RidingForWildlife. For up to date information regarding the world of wildlife conservation, please follow the link and like our Facebook.

Thank you and Merry Christmas.

Turner.

https://www.facebook.com/ridingforwildlife7?ref=bookmarks

Trial of Virunga.

Virunga national park is a 7,800 square kilometer national refuge, found along the eastern border of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This national park was the first declared park on the African continent and has held world heritage listing under UNESCO since 1979. From a biological point of view, Virunga holds more bird, mammal and reptile species than any other protected area across Africa, including a quarter of the worlds remaining critically endangered Mountain Gorillas. Virunga also encompasses a diverse range of ecosystems, from montane tropical forests through to the charismatic African savannah. The beauty and sheer biological significance of this national park should place it alongside world renown parks; greater than Yellowstone, the Kruger and the Serengeti in terms of ecological potential. Despite this potential however, Virunga finds itself faced with destruction, as the ongoing battle for this region turns from ivory to oil.

History of Virunga.

In keeping with the current threats facing this reserve, the history of Vigunra appears in no way more positive. Since the beginning of the 1980s this region has faced high poaching levels of its large mammals. Mountain gorillas were targeted by poachers and rebel militia alike, as well as the once dominant populations of elephant and lion. Civil war across the Congo, as well as neighboring Rwanda, saw an influx of refugees into this region, resulting in extensive logging and bush meat poaching. By the late 2000s Virunga was lost in all but name, rebel militia groups had taken over the park and were using it for guerilla warfare. The end of 2008 saw the battle of Guma within Virunga, ending the war and granting Virunga its first chance of peace in over thirty years. By this point however, over 140 wildlife rangers had lost their lives since 1994, protecting the reserve. Since 2008, Virunga has seen a positive trend of preservation. Mountain Gorillas continue to thrive in this park and now exceed over 200 individuals. Tourism and social infrastructure has began to take form within the reserve, allowing dire funding to come into the reserve to support its rangers.

The next trial.

SOCO International is a British oil company, involved worldwide in the prospecting and drilling of oil within developing nations. SOCO is already actively involved in Angola and Vietnam and currently, is conducting prospecting within Virunga national park. International outcry, led by the WWF, saw a petition of over 700,000 signatures created requesting international pressure on SOCO to seize all production within the Virunga – which was achieved in June this year. SOCO International has declared that they will not progress any further after prospecting, leaving the decision of what should be done regarding Virunga to the Congolese Government. Despite this however, the degree of SOCOs involvement within the Congo, as well as Virunga itself, is not well known with SOCO itself declaring that they are not finished with Virunga and its potential oil wells. If successful, SOCO could see the redrawing of Virunga’s boundaries as a national park and heritage site, allowing oil exploitation to begin, further damaging this already weakened ecosystem.

Global media coverage for the rangers of Virunga is now being seen and support is following this. If SOCO international becomes successful in redrawing Virunga and drilling within this heritage site, Virunga may finally be altogether lost, with many other heritage listed sites following.

For more information on the current events of Virunga, please visit the website:

virunga.org

http://www.wwf.org.uk/how_you_can_help/campaign_with_us/virunga/

To help me support the rangers of Virunga, as well as other wildlife rangers in need, please visit my donation page: https://donateplanet.com/fundraisers/read/78002/riding-for-wildife/

Thank you,

Michael Turner.

People Want More Land and Ocean Preserved for Nature

Pangolins and Poachers

Hey guys, hope everyone is doing well. I know it’s been a while since my last post, exams revision has taken over, but the end is in sight!

This blog will be the standard update for both the charity and within the field of wildlife conservation. There’s still a lot happening in both these aspects, so I hope you enjoy, writing/studying the blogs certainly beats exam revision!

In the field of wildlife conservation there has been a few troubling reports emerge within the last couple of weeks. A report released by WWF has found that the Pangolin is the highest trafficked mammal worldwide with a minimal estimate of 10’000 pangolins being illegally poached and trafficked overseas each year. For those who are not aware what a pangolin actually is, this beautiful, somewhat strange creature has been described as “a living walking pinecone”, more troubling however, its second description as a “a meal in a brown lunch bag and a medicine box”. I was fortunate enough to see a wild pangolin during my time in South Africa, and its not a species you would like to see go extinct.

In regards to the more known endangered species, things are just as bad, with the current rate of poaching across Africa, 82 Elephants and three Rhino will be slaughtered before the end of the day. This is a seriously troubling statistic with the end of both species predicted within the next two decades. In south Africa itself close to 1000 Rhino have already been poached this year, with current estimates predicted to surpass last years rate of poaching, for the seventh consecutive year. There has been some large arrests occurring across Africa, with a Rhino horn bust occurring in Mozambique as well as hundreds of Animal skins confiscated in Senegal

Finally, two wildlife rangers have been murdered in Uganda this week. Although names have not yet been a released, a conference from the Uganda Wildlife Authority has said that both cases occurred during a substantial shootout in which poachers have attacked ranger outposts in an attempt to push wildlife rangers out of high poaching areas. The fact that poachers are now directly targeting wildlife rangers in the war for wildlife is extremely disturbing and puts many more lives at risk. If you want to support these lost rangers, and their families left behind, please view and donate to my charity page, 100% of donations will go to the Thin green line foundation, to help support these amazing wildlife rangers. RIP.

As far as the charity goes, we are still making progress (slowly). CoalitionWild has pledged to help with publicity of the Riding for Wildlife charity, which is amazing. CoalitionWild works with many large conservation organization such as the WWF, so the potential for international recognition is now there. Back home we are still pushing local fundraiser events, including the upcoming charity cinema night and a trivia night hopefully early next year. Donations are still extremely short however and more are needed. As always, if you can spare anything at all, please follow the link below and donate to Riding for Wildlife. Unfortunately due to the personal financial situation, my charity bike ride from Adelaide to Darwin has now been pushed back until June. This was a tough decision to make, however it gives us more time to promote the charity and raise some more funds for the Thin Green Line Foundation. That’s it for now guys, turned out a little long, apologies for that, but I hope you’ve enjoyed.

Cheers guys.

Michael Turner.

https://donateplanet.com/fundraisers/read/78002/riding-for-wildife/

Picture from: http://africageographic.com/blog/when-the-buying-stops-the-killing-can-too/

A Thin Green Line for a Thick Red List

“Urgent Action needed to protect wildlife as global populations halve in 40 years”

The living planet report, published this week by the WWF and ZSL, may be one of the most disturbingly significant figures released in the wildlife conservation field to date. A study spanning decades, including 10,000 populations from 3,000 species has seen an overall mean decline of 52% of total wildlife. This figure, although only a sample from our global biomass, is a good indication of the way our wildlife is moving, with every one positive conservation story being replaced by a dozen negative. Entire species populations are now lost weekly, while new species are finding their way to the infamous Red list by the IUCN, now boasting an impressive 22,176 endangered species – and yes, this number is also increasing.

But what is this red list?

IUCN is the International union for the conservation of nature. This organisation is responsible for the global monitoring and listing of wildlife species. If a species is declared either endangered or critically endangered (defined by the percentage probability of their near extinction), they make the IUCN red list. As mentioned above, currently over 22’000 species are red listed, and by rights will receive government funding and protection for their conservation. Do they? No.

Within Australia, environmental legislation requires an action plan for each species be developed once red listed, these plans highlight how the species will be monitored, protected and conserved by our government bodies – you can find these online from DEPI. Once these action plans are established however, nothing is done, as required law for their protection ends at the establishment of these action plans, not their enactment. Action plans from endangered species can now be found for decades past, none of which served any purpose other than to watch these species reach extinction. The irony of which, is in most cases, they can still be found on the DEPI website.

The Thin Green Line, and the wildlife rangers they support, are doing as much as possible to stop new species reaching endangered listing, as well as protect those already listed. Without the support of our governments, these rangers go underpaid, ill equipped and inadequately trained. For those reading this, who are yet to see my charity – Riding for Wildlife – I will be cycling across central Australia, from Adelaide to Darwin, raising funds for the Thin Green Line Foundation. Please help me in supporting these wildlife rangers protecting our wildlife globally. Riding For Wildlife relies on your continued support in both fund raising and sharing fro awareness.

Thank you.

https://donateplanet.com/fundraisers/read/78002/riding-for-wildife/

Where We Stand

Hey guys! Hope everyone is doing well and for those that were aware, enjoyed International Rhino Day, last week! If you follow any of the conservation based NGO’s (maybe?) you would have seen a lot of cool stuff going on. Anyway, this blog is based around where we stand, in regards to both the Riding for Wildlife charity, and global wildlife conservation.

So first, the charity. Riding for Wildlife finally has its own logo and hopefully soon will have a proper website up and running! Currently were still in the process of trying to promote the ride through other organisations and social media. As strange as it sounds, this part (which was the same for the last ride) is one of the hardest and most depressing parts of the ride. For every twenty emails sent, one might be returned, normally saying that they cannot help. But regardless of this, we will continue to push, plead and beg in every direction we can (like all scientists). Riding for Wildlife has also successfully been entered in an environmental based project challenge, run by CoalitionWIld and the IUCN-WCPA. Ill attach a link to this page, but basically if chosen, Riding for Wildlife would receive global publicity, funding, the full works. So please take the time to check it out. Other works in the pipeline are generally fundraising based, such as a Bunnings BBQ day, Cinema movie nights, stuff like that. If you have any ideas, please let me know, any help would be greatly appreciated.

The last few weeks in conservation have been somewhat positive. Firstly, two large wildlife reserves in Kenya have agreed to pull down their fences and join properties. Borana and Lewa wildlife reserves, once connected, will make the largest rhino sanctuary in all of Kenya, allowing isolated populations of rhino to migrate and interbreed, increasing the gene flow. Kenya has also seen a series of violent exchanges between rangers and poachers. Luckily in these cases at least, our rangers have come out on top. With a wildlife ranger being killed on duty every four days on average, even a small victory such as this is a nice change.
Down in South Africa, a poaching syndicate, including an alleged kingpin have been arrested and face charges of at least 24 Rhino poached in the Kruger area. Although great news, it comes at the same time as the South African national parks attempt to evacuate 500 White rhino from the Kruger Park to other reserves for safety. Described by many as “the final frontline in Rhino conservation”, the need to evacuate Rhino from Kruger national park is nothing promising, highlighting all too well the pressure faced by the protectors of Africa’s “last rhino stronghold”.

In other parts of the world the ongoing threat on our wild areas continues to grow. A recent report confirmed that the last century has seen a 97% loss of Tiger populations globally. With over 1400 Tigers believed to be poached within the last twelve years, Tigers will become extinct within the next two decades. In Vietnam, between 40,000-60,000 Sunda Pangolins were caught and killed in 2011. This species is now critically endangered and continues to be poached at similar levels. In other areas across the globe, similar stories are emerging, as wildlife trafficking – now valued at up to $20 Billion USD annually – becomes one of the world’s most lucrative black market industries.

That’s it for now guys, below is the link to the Coalition wild Project challenge. Ive also attached a short youtube video (3 minutes) from Virunga National park, in Congo. If you have time, please look at both. To those that have donated to, or shared these pages, thank you again. You may have just saved a few Pangolins 🙂

Cheers guys.

http://pushingboundaries.coalitionwild.org/projects/108

https://donateplanet.com/fundraisers/read/78002/riding-for-wildife/

Tell a Friend.

Hey guys, hope everyone is doing well.

This blog post is going to be pretty simple, but will hopefully help get the ball rolling again for this charity. One of the biggest threats to conservation across the world is the lack of awareness of the threats faced by animals, and the rangers protecting them. In many cases, the lack of coverage given to the most critically endangered species leads to their extinction. Without awareness there is no will to support and fund these crucial conservation programs.

So if you have read this blog (and please share it after you have), tell a friend. Start a conversation and get someone interested. Otherwise nothing will change. Try one of these:

“Hey did you know that Rhino poaching has increased 5000% since 2006?”
“So I hear that over 100’000 elephants have been poached across Africa in the last three years!”
“I love seeing Tigers in the zoo, shame they’re going to be extinct in the wild within a decade”
“Another two wildlife rangers were lost this week to poachers, I hear the Thin Green Line is supporting their families”

The saddest part about these sentences, is that they’re all true (bet you didn’t know that did you?). Anyway, as always please continue to share, spread, donate, talk about, anything to help me in this fundraiser. For now, I’ll leave you with one more conversation starter. There is currently 2464 Fauna species listed as critically endangered under the IUCN. The definition of critically endangered is having at least a 50% chance of going extinct within the next ten years without further protection. What does this mean? Quite simply, if you wanted to put money on it, it would be a safe bet to say that well over 1000 more animal species will be extinct by 2024.

Thanks for reading guys, the link to my fundraising page is below, have a look, donate if you can.

Cheers, Turner.

https://donateplanet.com/fundraisers/read/78002/riding-for-wildife/

A Thin Green Line.

Hey guys! Hope everyone is doing well. As you can see, I’ve got a new blog page – Riding for Wildlife. After completing Riding for Rhino earlier this year, I’ve decided to continue riding for charity, in particular, wildlife conservation. As some of you may already know, in January to February 2015, I will be riding through central Australia, from Adelaide to Darwin, along the Stuart highway. This ride will be over 3000 kilometres in length and take roughly 40 days to complete. As well as this, due to University commitments, the summer break will be the only time I can complete this ride, adding the heat as another interesting factor to the charity.

This time round I will also be choosing another charity to raise funds for. The Thin Green Line foundation is a not-for-profit Charity organisation that supports rangers working on front lines of wildlife conservation. This NGO provides funding for basic equipment, salary supplements and training for Park rangers and Anti-poaching units, predominately within developing nations. As well as this – and one of the main reasons I have chosen this charity – the thin green line supports the widowed families of Wildlife rangers that have been killed on duty. In many cases, these families are reliant on this sole income for survival and are forced into homelessness after the loss of their loved one. The thin green line, with the help of its sponsors, protects these families and provides assistance to them, as well as communities largely involved in Wildlife conservation.

For more information on the work The Thin Green line does, please visit their website below, or watch the youtube video.

http://thingreenline.org.au/story/

That’s it for now guys! Hopefully the charity page will be up and running soon. I will begin to post more blogs over the coming months about the progress for the charity, as well as any important news within Wildlife conservation. As for the ride itself, I’m still looking for anyone interested in joining. Even if you don’t want to complete the full ride (I don’t blame you), but interested in completing a section, please let me know. More details to come.

Cheers guys. 🙂

Turner.