The World Land Trust website has been updated www.worldlandtrust.org and new pictures and pages have been uploaded. Please have a look, and tell us what you think. In addition, work has started on a new educational site about Forests - a preview version of this site is available on the WLT education pages.

WLT supporter Allan Archer has written a site about a land for cartridges scheme, which he is running to raise funds for the WLT. The site is available on http://mysite.freeserve.com/landforcartridges/ . If any supporters have a site that features the World Land Trust, or links to us please drop us an email. Allan's main site "Talk:Wildlife" is also well worth a visit: www.talkwildlife.citymax.com.

Rainforest Cafe - funds received for Cha-Cha Reserve. 

A cheque for £3,574.75 from Rainforest Cafe arrived today which reminded us to remind readers that they can help raise funds for Ecuador by calling into the Rainforest Cafe when they are next in central London. As part of their commitment to supporting our work in Ecuador the Rainforest Cafe are donating 25p for every 'Rainforest Dish' ordered; they also donate 30% of the takings of the Crocodile (Wishing) Pool. Ultimately their donations will be used for the Trust to purchase the Cha-Cha Reserve in Ecuador. More details to follow. The Rainforest Cafe is located on the south side of Shaftesbury Avenue, near Piccadilly Circus.

Sponsorship from Toshiba

WLT has been leasing a photocopier from Toshiba for the past ten years and it was time for an upgrade. Toshiba have very kindly upgraded our machine at no extra cost the the Trust as their way of supporting our work. We are also working on an arrangement whereby the WLT will further benefit from any introductions that come to Toshiba via the Trust. We hope to publish further details in the Autumn issue of WLT News.

West Kalimantan on Fire 

The WLT has been asked to pass on a plea for urgent assistance from W. Kalimantan.

Orangutan - © Bruce Pearson 1987 from The Collins Guide to Rare Mammals

"My fire fighting team, ‘Tim Serbu Api’ (TSA) is working hard to suppress fires in the former Mega Rice Project area, near to the Kalampangan Canal in Central Kalimantan Province of Indonesia. Fire has also started in the Natural laboratory for Management of Peat Swamp Forest where we have been recording biodiversity and natural resource functions of this threatened ecosystem for the last 10 years. Its future survival is now at stake. This area is also home to the largest remaining orang utan population in the world. Its survival is also threatened and up to 5,000 animals could die if these fires gain a firm hold.
All of the people in and around the Provincial capital of Palangka Raya are now suffering from the choking haze and smoke. The conditions are terrible and many children will become ill, some permanently. We desperately need help to extinguish these fires. My fire fighting team has no money, only big hearts and much determination. My colleagues and I have given up working at our jobs and are doing dangerous work day and night to try to stop the inferno increasing to the catastrophic level it reached in 1997 when nearly 2 Giga Tonnes of carbon were released into the world’s atmosphere, causing much destruction and affecting global climate."

You can contact Suwido at the address below.
E-mail:

Link to more information

WLT at the Wildlife Art Society 

The Annual Exhibition of the Wildlife Art Society will take place from 25th October to 6 November at Bristol Zoo and is open to members of the public. WLT will be benefiting from the proceeds of the raffle. More details to follow in next eBulletin

New Volunteer in the WLT office 

Jenni Walsh, sorting books for the WLT

Find out more about volunteering for the WLT here.
WLT’s latest volunteer Jenni Walsh, a 17 year old local student volunteered to work two days a week for the Trust during the summer holidays. Jenni intends to pursue a career in environmental conservation after university, and wanted to get some work experience with a conservation organisation. In addition to carrying out a wide range of office duties, Jenni’s most important task was getting the Books for NGOs Programme under way (see more below). She finished cataloguing the books donated by the Natural History Book Service, and then collated all the requests from NGOs. We have been deluged with requests from as far away as China, Brazil, India, South Africa and Mexico. Jenni has also packed up consignments ready for collection or despatch.

Books for NGO's Programme 

The World Land Trust, in conjunction with the Natural History Book Service, and a number of publishers have initiated a programme to supply books to NGOs in developing countries with books on wildlife, conservation, biology and related topics.
In many countries such books are either difficult to obtain, or extremely expensive. The books supplied by the WLT are mostly publishers’ returns, with some slight damage, but nonetheless very useful working copies. There are also a few used books donated by supporters, review copies etc.

World Land Trust Needs

The WLT Book Programme has been received very enthusiastically, but there are some costs involved, and does take quite a bit of staff time.

There are four main ways you can contribute:

1. Make a donation to sponsor the WLT’s work with overseas NGOs.
2. Send a list of any unwanted books you think may be of interest to NGOs abroad, and you would like to donate
3. Donate old binoculars or other wildlife related equipment.
4. If you travel regularly, offer to act as a courier for packages of books occasionally.