earth love

THE HERPETOLOGICAL CONSERVATION TRUST
This UK based charity was established in 1989 by Vincent Weir and Ian Swingland with the aim of protecting Britain's threatened herpetofauna (amphibians and reptiles). The three primary areas of concern to the Trust are:
1. The safeguarding and management of vital habitat.
2. The furthering of knowledge regarding the life and requirements of herpetological species through research, education and advice.
3. Stimulating and raising public understanding and awareness about amphibians and reptiles.
The charity wishes to improve the conservation status of amphibians and reptiles in their natural environment throughout the UK and, where necessary, will undertake its work in Europe and throughout the world.
Native amphibians range from the common toad to the natterjack toad to the great crested newt. Varieties of reptiles include the sand lizard, slow worm, grass snake and marine turtle.
The Trust has Action Plans relating to each particular species, and works with statutory nature conservation organisations to implement these plans at a national and local level.
Many species, like the natterjack toad, are threatened through loss and damage to habitat. The Action Plans aim to maintain and improve existing amphibian and reptile populations by effectively managing habitats while providing for the species' specific needs. Sometimes this involves restoring species to areas where they have been lost, as in the case of sand lizards where groups that have become fragmented are once again linked together by providing appropriate connecting habitats. With the marine turtle, the case is particularly extensive, looking at specified threats such as sea pollution and dumping and working worldwide to ensure the turtle's conservation, especially on breeding beaches. With all Action Plans, conservation is encouraged at a local level.
Captive breeding is sometimes necessary in order to boost populations where animals have had to be translocated from one habitat that has become degraded or is due for 'economic' developement, to a new area. The most succesful captive breeding programme has been that of the sand lizard. Due to pressures such as unseasonable weather conditions, predators and isolated populations, only 5% of youngsters survive. HCT, as part of the Sand Lizard Species Programme run by Chester Zoo, helps co-ordinate the breeding and release of sand lizards to the wild. Several new populations have been introduced resulting in all three of the British races of sand lizard being maintained.
Habitat conservation is the key to protecting the UK's threatened herpetofauna. Habitats range from mature open heathland, favoured by the likes of the sand snake, to the coastal sand dunes enjoyed by natterjack toads, and the ponds and scrapes that provide a haven to amphibians. All these habitats are under pressure from human population, although heathland is the most vital to rare reptiles. The Trust runs training programmes for those who live or work on the land and whose impact will have the greatest effect, whether they be landowners, farmers or schoolchildren. HCT provides information and guidance aiming to encourage long term interest within as wide an audience as possible.
The Trust is one of Britain's leading managers of lowland dry heathland, managing over 80 reserves and working closely with private landowners. It owns a total of 7 sites, including Great Ovens Hill at the eastern end of what was Thomas Hardy's famous Egdon Heath. Volunteer work parties assist in land management such as cutting and maintenance of firebreaks, the scraping of old dunes and the creation and restoration of slacks and ponds.
Abroad, the Trust works with the Council of European Wildlife and Habitats, and sends representatives to assist in meetings of the Societas Europea Herpetologica (SEH) thus helping influence European Policy.
There are many ways to become involved, besides making a donation, such as volunteering, surveying and monitoring (calling budding wildlife photographers) or becoming an on-site warden at one of the Trust's many reserves.
For further information on the work of this unique charity see: www.herpconstrust.org.uk, phone: +(44)01202391319, or write to The Herpetological Trust, 655A Christchruch Road, Boscombe, Bournemouth, Dorset, BH1 4AP



RSPB
The RSPB was formed in 1889 in Didsbury as a response to the trade in grebe feathers for ladies' fashions that was forcing the Great Crested Grebe to extinction. The Society has now progressed to become one of the most infuential conservation organisations, whose work is driven by the belief that we all have a responsibility to protect birds and the environment.
Climate change, intensification of agriculture, pressure from human populations, transport infrastructure and over-exploitation of our seas all pose significant threats to birds, and today the charity recognises that the need for conservation has never been greater.
The RSPB has 200 nature reserves, ranging from the largest at Abernethy near Aviemore, to the smallest at Fairy Glen near Highland. The reserves grew from the RSPB system of 'watchers': farmers, fishermen and others paid to keep an eye on rare breeding birds. Today these reserves not only provide a great day out but provide vital habitat for at least 30% of the UK's breeding populations of 13 species of Birds of Conservation Concern (eg. bittern, red-necked phalarope, roseate tern) and also for 54 species of mammal, including 14 of the 17 native species of bat, not to mention homes for all our native amphibians, reptiles, 37 of the 39 native species of dragonfly, 53 of the 55 species of butterfly and over 700 of the UK's 726 large moths.
Many reserves also have rare or scarce plant species (Abernethy has 48) and over 2000 different species of fungi have been found on RSPB reserves alone. In the past 2-3 years, 16 species new to Britain have been found, including a spider, moth, 2 wasps and 12 flies, one of which was entirely new to science! Details of reserves by area and by habitat can be found on the RSPB website.
The RSPB has a network of offices throughout the UK and all the charity's work is based on a sound scientific understanding of what is happening in a particular area. Many of its reserves are fragments of a now vanishing countryside so the RSPB is keen to take the wider view and aims to conserve wilderness for birds and other wildlife and is therefore concerned with biodiversity as a whole.
As a lead partner is the UK's Biodiversity Action Plan, the RSPB has been assigned special responsibility for 36 priority species, 25 of which are birds, 7 are invertebrates and 4 are plants. This involves carrying out studies on species that are declining such as song thrush, bullfinch, great yellow bumblebee, and stump lichen, determining the reasons for their decline and setting targets for improvements. Often this can involve forming partnerships with other organisations eg. Scottish National Heritage, English Nature, DEFRA and the Volunteer and Farming Alliance Project whereby the RSPB offers farmers a free survey of their land, carried out by volunteers. Full reports on the progress of each priority species are available on the charity's website, including details of constraints such as lack of funding for agri-environment schemes, unseasonal weather patterns and shooting.
The UK BAP also identifies 45 priority habitats eg. bogland, fens and marsh and RSPB is involved in conservation action for many of these, creating, managing and restoring a range of habitats on their reserves. Sometimes this means influencing land use policy and legislation and RSPB actively campaigns for the reform of the Hedgerow Regulations and the introduction of hedgerow regulations in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Influencing agricultural policy and practice is of crucial importance if many of these threatened populations are to recover. RSPB believes that a complete overhaul of the Common Agricultural Policy is required and that the vast sums spent on farming subsidies should be switched to initiatives that improve the countryside.
Where government proposals threaten to harm the environment, the charity is quick to step in. They oppose and continue to opposse plans for the Severn Barrage in Wales and will resist pressure for development on or close to their nature reserves eg. Cliff Marshes in Kent (where plans were put forward to build an airport). The charity also supports the development of renewable, clean energy.
As well as their work in the UK, the RSPB monitors situations across the world like the Saemangeum Project in Korea where 155 square miles of wetland has been reclaimed to provide a golf course, casino and/or race track, threatening at least two bird species, including spoon billed sandpipers, with extinction, or the 2 day open season on shooting turtle doves, granted by the Cypriot government.
The RSPB has a fully extensive website, detailing all of its projects and activities. The site includes a full A-Z list of birds with illustrations and area distribution maps, and has an advice page with tips on how to help birds by feeding and providing nestboxes, how to create a wildlife-friendly garden, and how to live a green lifestyle by saving energy, water and recycling waste.
There are many ways to support the RSPB, including becoming a member, making a donation or volunteering indoors in shops and tearooms, or outdoors surveying birds, and monitoring and guarding nest sites.
Contact 01767693680 or visit www.rspb.org.uk to find out your local office number.



PETA
With more than 1.6 million members and supporters, PETA is the largest animal rights organisation in the world. The charity began in Norfolk, Virginia, USA, and is dedicated to preventing the abuse of animals and establishing rights for animals particularly in those areas where they suffer most and in the largest numbers, such as on factory farms, in laboratories, the fashion trade and the entertainment industry. PETA uses a combination of methods including raising public awareness through educational media campaigns (often involving celebrities), undercover investigations, research, animal rescue and peaceful protest in order to achieve its aims.
The charity's work has achieved a number of successes over the years. In 1981, their investigations resulted in the first ever conviction on charges of cruelty, and withdrawl of federal funds to an animal experimenter in the US. Other investigations saw major companies such as Benetton, Avon and Este Lauder stop their testing of cosmetic products on animals. General Motors Corporation ended its use of animals in crash tests after a PETA campaign and, after an expose by PETA on the gory details of foie gras production, many airlines and restaurants dropped the 'so-called delicacy' from their menus.
Some of the cases PETA has brought to the courts have set legal precedents in terms of convictions for animal cruelty. These include the cases of a Californian furrier electrocuting chinchillas by clipping wires to their genitals, and a fur rancher causing the death of minks by injecting them with weedkiller. Pigs being skinned alive at factory farms in North Carolina and Oklahoma led to the first ever felony indictments of farm workers.
PETA's lobbying has also resulted in the US National Air and Space Administration stopping a programme in which straitjacketed monkeys were to be implanted with electrodes and launched into space.
In order to carry out its groundbreaking work, it is necessary for the charity to expose the horrors suffered by many animals around the world, and PETA's investigations into animal cruelty often result in rescue programmes and high profile campaigns. Ewan McGregor and Martin Sheen amongst others with the help of US, German and Canadian government officials helped secure the release of polar bears who had suffered for years in the Suarez Bros. Circus. The bears are now thriving in a new environment. And PETA's campaign to urge PETCO to take more responsibility for the animals in its care resulted in better homes being found for millions of rats and mice. In 2006, the charity moved eight elephants living at the Hawthorn Corporation in Illinois (a major supplier of elephants to circuses) where they where beaten and kept chained, to new and improved homes.
PETA believes that the key to ending most animal abuse lies in educating people not 'to accept the staus quo with little curiosity about how animals are treated,' but to look at the way animals are used in food production, the fashion industry, laboratories and entertainment and to question and give voice to their concerns when they see cases of neglect and cruelty. To this end, PETA promotes cruelty-free living for all, advocating organic and vegetarian/vegan alternatives, urging people not to wear animal products or use products that have been tested on animals, or to support the use of animals for entertainment. Guides to 'animal-friendly' companies are available online at the PETA website, as well as a vegetarian starter kit and an on-line vegan chef to answer all your questions and concerns.
The charity also supports responsible care of companion animals including the importance of spaying and neutering and has heaps of online advice on all our friends from cats to guinea pigs to horses. Advice is offered on how to report cases of cruelty and on the correct procedures for dealing with injured birds and wildlife, from rats to racoons, skunks to squirrels. PETA will even show you how to live harmoniously with 'household guests' such as wasps and bees. Don't wear yellow or white while working in the garden as insects are attracted to those colours. Instead choose red as many insects find this difficult to see. Literature is availble from PETA in a variety of languages as well as stickers, leaflets and DVDs.
PETA is all about living harmoniously with our fellow creatures and recognising that we are not superior and that they have needs and feelings just like we do. If you were ever in doubt, look at PETA's online video of two elephants, Shirley and Jenny, who met in the horrendous Carson and Barnes circus 'but not even a 23 year separation could destroy their bond.'
For more information on how to donate, become a campaigner or further advice on any of the above, go to www.peta.org or call 02073579229 (London) or 7576227382 (USA).