World Land Trust (WLT) and its network of partners carries out innovative conservation work that is regularly featured in local and national media. This page displays a selection of news articles featuring WLT, ranging from our work to conserve threatened habitats and species to our high profile events.
Click on the article links to read the full stories online. Articles without links are in print only or require a subscription to be viewed online.
Wild Notebook: If the Euro-leopard is to survive, we must keep open the corridors that connect leopard to leopard.
A leopard has been spotted — please share my delight in the double-meaning — running wild in Europe. Its image has been caught by a camera trap lurking in the darkness, a black and white picture, black and charcoal grey, really, but unmistakably a leopard. Or more precisely, unmistakably a leopard’s tail.
Paul Murphy's comment (25 June, page 15) perpetuates the myth that there is a legal category for interns, and also wrongly assumes some sort of consistency in the sector's treatment of them.
World Land Trust has produced a collection of deckchairs with Southampton University and Southsea Deckchairs (£150 each). Each sale enables the charity to protect half an acre of threatened habitat.
Faithful readers of this column will remember the recent tale of the rainforest research station that was torched and destroyed by people who oppose the work of the conservation organisation Guyra Paraguay. Many generous people responded to the piece with donations to the organisation. Rainforest matters to us all. And so, for that matter, does courage.
A group of cyclists have completed an energy-sapping challenge. The 12 fundraisers saddled up for a 60-mile bike ride beginning and ending in Halesworth to raise money for conservation chrity World Land Trust, which is based in the town.
May 2013. Recent camera-trap footage from the Caucasus Wildlife Refuge has recorded a Syrian Brown Bear and highlights the importance of camera-traps for monitoring wildlife and informing conservation strategies.
A camera-trap has recently captured rare footage of a Syrian Brown Bear (Ursus arctos syriacus), a subspecies of Brown Bear native to Eurasia. This is an important recording as there may be just one or two bears in the reserve and the Red Data Book of Armenia lists them as vulnerable.
A town with a strong floral tradition is preparing to enter this year's Anglia in Bloom competition. Halesworth was once the home of William Hooker, the first director of the world famous Kew Gardens, and his son Joseph, a renowned botanist and explorer during the 19th Century.
Halesworth in Bloom is launched today and a portfolio of activities is being prepared for the Anglia in Bloom judges' first visit on July 5, which includes the renewal of the Hookers' memorial garden by the war memorial near St Mary's Church.
Conservation charity The World Land Trust is seeking approval for a major new feature to be unveiled soon on their premises near to Hooker House.
New camera-trap footage from the Caucasus Wildlife Refuge in Armenia, has captured rare footage of a Syrian Brown Bear (Ursus arctos syriacus), a subspecies of Brown Bear native to Eurasia. This is an important recording as there may be just one or two bears in this reserve and the animals are listed as vulnerable in Armenia. The exact population of this subspecies is unknown and likely to be declining due to poaching, habitat destruction and diminishing sources of food in the wild.
Kelly Jacobs was invited to talk about World Land Trust and its activities during Sylvie’s Magazine Show (Sylvia Jagger) on Blyth Valley Community Radio
(19 min 34 sec)
Scientists have recently taken rare and incredible footage of a giant anteater with a camera trap in the Barba Azul Nature Reserve of Bolivia. This footage captures a giant anteater wallowing in a pit of mud.
Lindsay Waddell, chairman of the Gamekeepers Organisation (letter, May 22), is quite right in pointing out that "many of the factors that drove these subtle but substantive predator/prey relationships have broken down". But this is not an argument for exterminating the increasingly rare predators, but surely a very real argument for curtailing the release of an estimated 35 million pheasants and 6 million red-legged partridges into the wild every year.
(A letter from John A Burton, Chief Executive World Land Trust, published in The Times)
Bill Oddie accused HSBC of funding the desecration of rainforests at the banking giant's annual general meeting.
HSBC's board members were confronted by the 71-year-old birdwatcher and broadcaster over its links to firms operating in Borneo.
(Bill Oddie is a World Land Trust supporter and has visited the Trust's rainforest conservation project in Borneo)
International conservation charity, World Land Trust has produced a deckchair collection in collaboration with University of Southampton's Winchester School of Art and Southsea Deckchairs. Each chair sold will enable World Land Trust to purchase and protect half an acre of threatened habitat forever.
For most of my life I have been a birdwatcher and a writer and performer of generally fairly frivolous shows. Two areas I have never been comfortable with – politics and finances. It is not that I am perversely not interested, it is that I don’t understand the language. However, one of the perks or pains of being a "public figure" - or even a "celeb" - is that I am often asked my opinion...
(WLT Council Member Bill Oddie ponders "the minefield of dilemmas involved in 'exploiting' a country's natural resources" following a visit to Sabah in Borneo, arranged by World Land Trust)
Last year, the World Land Trust, a charity described by David Attenborough as having 'more effect on the wild world than anything I can think of', collaborated with classic British deckchair company Southsea Deckchairs. They challenged surface design students at the Winchester School of Art to create a deckchair sling design that was inspired by an endangered creature: big cats, elephants, orang-utans, parrots or coral.
A recent Glasgow University expedition to Bolivia's Beni savannah have produced important survey data on the birds and mammals of the Barba Azul Nature Reserve. The research teams also captured fascinating camera-trap footage including a great sequence of a Giant Anteater enjoying a nocturnal wallow.
Recent Glasgow University expeditions to Bolivia's Beni savannah have produced important survey data on the birds and mammals of the Barba Azul Nature Reserve. The research teams also captured fascinating camera-trap footage including a great sequence of a Giant Anteater enjoying a nocturnal wallow. World Land Trust (WLT) is currently raising funds to extend Barba Azul Nature Reserve, an area of extraordinary biodiversity managed by WLT's Bolivian conservation partner Armonia.
(The article describes the importance of the Barba Azul Nature Reserve, the threats it faces and some of the species Glasgow University has recorded there using camera-traps)
Given the relentless pace at which wildlife habitat is being devoured by the march of development, some government agencies, non-governmental organizations and individuals have been trying to push back—by buying land and letting nature reclaim it.
A recent exercise involved the purchase of 26 acres along the Thirunelli-Kudrakote wildlife corridor in the Wayanad district of Kerala that comes under the watch of the non-profit Wildlife Trust of India (WTI). In the past few months, camera traps have recorded three tigers crossing the corridor.
The land was purchased by WTI with the help of the World Land Trust (WTL), IUCN-Netherlands and the Elephant Family to restore the degraded habitat and protect wildlife along the stretch.
(The article discusses both the challenge of buying land in India with land costs surging, and also the struggle to strike the right balance between conservation and economic growth)
Nothing inspires me more than nature and its ways.
Being a field officer with the Wildlife Trust of India, working for the securement of Wayanad (elephant) Corridor, I regularly walk down the corridor trying to track elephant herds using it. Supported by agencies like the Elephant Family, IUCN and the World Land Trust, we had managed to secure this corridor for elephants, and now we are assessing their use.
(Ramith M, Field Officer for Wildlife Trust of India, describes an encounter with a herd of elephants in the Eastern Ghats of India)
James, Carrie and Callum from Paradise Wildlife Park in Broxbourne are taking the plunge and bungee jumping to raise money for the World Land Trust. The charity aims to pump vital resource into its 'Ecuador Rainforest Project' where the mountain tapir could face extinction in the next 20 years.
(The bungee jump takes place on 21 June 2013; the 3 tapir keepers will be donating funds raised to World Land Trust, www.justgiving.com/takingthetapirplunge)
