Greetings from Kwale, people of Wales! It is my sincere hope that you have continued to enjoy these updates through which we communicate the results and impacts of your much appreciated support. During the month of August, we have continued to achieve our mission, which would otherwise have not been realised without your support.

Women actively participate in tree growing for conservation and income generation. © Elias Kimaru / WWF Cymru

The fight to save Mrima Sacred Forest from proposed mining of niobium and rare earth metals goes on.

The minister in charge of mineral resources visited the site and gave a stern warning to the Cortec Mining Company not to continue with the prospecting until people’s concerns were addressed. At the same time, Kenya’s National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) has officially responded to the mining license application made by the company few months ago, taking into account issues raised at a public meeting held in June.

The company has been asked to carry out further consultation, conduct a detailed study of local biodiversity – including the threatened Colobus monkeys – and conduct a detailed radiological study as the area is suspected to be rich in radioactive materials. More importantly, the company has been asked to prove that the forest is not currently ‘gazetted’ (designated) as a National Monument, Forest Reserve and a Nature Reserve.

To ‘de-gazette’ a forest in Kenya, requires both cabinet and parliament approval, so this is going to be a hard task. Civil Society Organizations in Kwale with coordination and support of WWF will continue working with NEMA and others to ensure this area of environmental and cultural heritage is not destroyed.

The bank Manager Madam Zainab using a computer donated by WWF. This has greatly enhance data management and improved service delivery. © Elias Kimaru / WWF Cymru

Meanwhile, a ‘village bank’ is going from strength to strength in helping some of the poorest communities in Kwale district.

Kaya Kinondo village Financial Services Association offers financial services to people living next to three sacred forest blocks in Kwale, namely Kaya Kinondo, Kaya Muhaka and Gogoni.

In the first six months of 2012, 110 new members joined the bank, increasing the number of the members to 835. The association gave credit amounting to US$51,000 during the same period. This is huge amount given that the bank is located in one of the poorest villages in the country. Most of the credit is used to initiate and expand small scale enterprises in the villages – such as improved farming, transport business, tree growing and food kiosks, which are mostly owned and run by women.

The Placencia peninsula is located in the Stann Creek district in the south-east of Belize. Nadia from WWF-Belize, my host here, is supporting community mangrove protection work in this region, having identified it as one of Belize’s most vulnerable sites. Not just from human pressures such as overfishing but also natural weather hazards like hurricanes and storm surges.

As you drive down the peninsula this vulnerability is not hard to understand. The land narrows so much in some places you can glance to the left and see the waters of the Caribbean Sea and to the right and see the mangrove-surrounded Placencia lagoon.

Below the water, mangrove forests proved shelter for fish - so much so that they're known as 'fish nurseries'. © WWF

It’s this proximity to water that makes it such a tourist hotspot. And what do tourists want? Second homes and hotels with a view of the water, of course – and therein lies the mangroves problem. Much of the peninsula has been redeveloped and the natural mangrove vegetation removed to create those idyllic sea views.

I admit, before I started this job I’d never given much thought to mangroves – but now I see them as climate change heroes. A frontline defence against rising sea levels and storm surges. Not only do mangrove forests buffer the coastline against potentially destructive wave energy they also provide many other services, such as keeping water clean by filtering out sediment and acting as nurseries for juvenile fish.

But as more and more mangroves are cleared for development, it’s clear that not many of the developers have given much thought to their value either.

There are exceptions, though, and we met with one – Stuart Khron a developer and the director of the Placenica-Belize Tourism Industry Association.

Stuart understands the benefits that mangroves provide – he used to be a TV news reporter and he saw first-hand the damage caused by mangrove destruction.

Mangroves do more than support wildlife - they protect the land against erosion and flooding, unlike this crumbling sea wall. © WWF-UK / Rebecca Absalom

So maybe that’s the key – education. It’s something Nadia is working to improve. As we talk with Stuart I have no doubt of his strong conservation beliefs, but he’s also obviously a very astute businessman.

Yes, keeping mangroves intact is good for the environment, but leaving them standing is also a lot cheaper than building a sea wall, which we saw in other locations doesn’t last very long, or repairing a property damaged by flooding.

To recognise this good stewardship Nadia has developed the Mangrove-Friendly Development Challenge, highlighting and encouraging developments and community activities, such as Stuart’s, that conserve mangrove habitat.

This development works with the environment - these pathways allow holidaymakers to get the most out of their sea view without damaging the mangrove. © WWF-UK / Rebecca Absalom

Stuart took us to see his development site, which differs from the many others on Placencia peninsula in that the natural mangrove buffer remains along the water’s edge. The wall of vegetation is punctuated in a few places to make way for a jetty leading to the water so holidaymakers can still get that all-important sea view.

I personally find the mangrove beautiful, providing a lush green wall that makes the whole place feel much more private and tropical. And I can also disprove the argument that mangroves encourage mosquitoes. As a walking mosquito magnet – bitten and swollen so much on this trip I was dubbed WWF’s ‘elephant woman’ – I can honestly say my time spent in the mangroves resulted in no greater war wounds than the beach front of Placencia Town. So there you go, that’s that argument scientifically refuted.

Later that day we took a tour of the Placencia Lagoon with Mary Toy and Adrian Vernon, director and programme director of the Placenica Citizens for Sustainable Development (PCSD).

Our first stop on the tour was ‘Crimson Park’ – an area that the communities allowed a private firm to develop, as they promised plots for both private and affordable public housing (the latter very much needed locally).

This 'For Sale' sign is now all that remains of a lagoon, hastily filled with sediment that is unsuitable for building on. © WWF-UK / Rebecca Absalom

The developers used sediment to fill in the lagoon to create the land, and while the private housing part turned out OK, the public housing section was not built properly and is now subsiding. Like a giant, empty concrete car park, all we saw was a rather pathetic ‘For Sale’ sign surrounded by an awful lot of pooled water.

The PCSD was formed following a similar disappointment when the government threatened to develop a cruise ship port close to the peninsula. It would have meant tourists would stay on the boats, giving all the revenue to international companies rather than local hotels and restaurants. The community galvanised together, 80% voting against the ship port, and it was successfully opposed – for now at least.

This development isn't following environmental safeguards by building outside of the mangrove wall. © WWF-UK / Rebecca Absalom

As our tour continued around the east side of the lagoon we witnessed an illegal development happening right before our eyes.

A digger was excavating sediment from the lagoon floor and using it to build up a marina. Not an entirely illegal activity, but the fact that it was building outside the mangrove wall and not using any ‘silt curtains’ (which catch the loose sediment) meant it wasn’t following the environmental safeguards.

This was the first Mary and Adrian had heard of this development – and it’s because of things like this that the PCSD is lobbying to make the Placencia Lagoon a National Park. Then all developments will be required to undertake an Environmental Impact Assessment and Public Consultation.

It means the community will be made aware of all proposed developments and be better able to ensure environmental safeguards, like silt curtains, are adhered to.

Nadia has been supporting the efforts of the PCSD, as well as joining with other NGOs and organisations to lobby for improved mangrove legislation from the government.

Mangrove forest proves habitat for many species - including other plants, such as bromeliads. © WWF / Marianne Fish

WWF-Belize has also funded a national mapping exercise to calculate Belize’s mangrove cover. Photos from 1980 to 2010 have been analysed and show that 2% of mangrove cover has been removed, mainly around tourist and residential hotspots like Placencia. That may not sound like a lot, but it’s calculated that mangroves provide about a quarter of Belize’s GDP, so any loss has a significant economic impact.

So, as we took a break from our lagoon tour for lunch – and enjoyed an outstanding lobster coconut curry courtesy of Adrian – I felt comforted that the future of mangroves in Belize is not all doom and gloom.

Yes, there is an exceptionally large mountain to climb, but I couldn’t think of more inspiring or action-orientated people for Nadia to climb it with than Stuart, Mary, Adrian and the people of the Placencia peninsula.

Coming up next, I’ll be visiting Belize’s amazing coral nurseries – and seeing the positive effect that these nurseries are having.

One of the projects WWF-Belize has been supporting in Placencia is the work of Lisa Carne, a marine biologist whose been working on speeding up the recovery of damaged coral reefs in Belize. We met up with Lisa at a dive shop on the seafront for a fascinating trip to see her coral nurseries – a project she calls ‘Fragments of Hope’.

Snorkelling is one of the best ways to see the coral – and one of the most fun!

As we packed up the boat with our snorkelling gear, Lisa explained how the health of coral reefs around the world is rapidly declining – because of human pressures like pollution, overfishing and sedimentation, as well as natural threats such as hurricanes.

These pressures and hazards are problem enough for the coral reefs, but they’re made much worse by climate change, which it’s projected will increase sea surface temperatures and the frequency of hurricanes.

The Mesoamerican reef ecoregion, stretching about 1,000 kilometres down the Atlantic / Caribbean coast from Mexico to Honduras, has already been considerably affected by mass ‘bleaching’ events in the past.

Bleaching is caused when coral is stressed by higher than average sea temperatures. The stressed coral will often end up inadvertently losing its hold on the symbiotic (and often colourful) algae that lives on it, resulting in a loss of colour – hence the term bleaching.

A table of coral – all thermally tolerant and able to withstand increase in temperature. © Paquita Bath

Sometimes the algae, and therefore the colour, will return – but the stress can lead to increased incidences of disease, failed reproduction and partial or even complete death of whole coral colonies.

In response to this, Lisa has developed coral nurseries, where fragments of thermally tolerant corals are grown to be planted on damaged reefs.

How do you know if a coral is ‘thermally tolerant’, I wondered? Well, it turns out it’s pretty obvious after a bleaching event – the tolerant individuals either didn’t bleach or recovered quickly.

As I entered the water for our first snorkel, I was wondering how easy it would be to identify coral bleaching, but I soon developed my own methodology. If the coral colour was almost as pale as my never-see-the-sun British skin, then I reckoned it must have been bleached!

Lisa showed us one of the thermally tolerant coral which fisherman had seen survive a coral bleaching event in 2009. This individual is now being used by Lisa as a ‘mother’ coral. She trims its fronds and propagates those in a nursery to produce resilient clones. The trimming doesn’t hurt the mother coral – in fact, it’s used to reproducing in this way, as fragments are often broken off during high wave action storms.

Lisa mainly uses the Caribbean Acropora corals, commonly known as Elkhorn and Staghorn, as they are some of the fastest growing, reef-building corals. They were also the first corals to be listed as ‘critically endangered’ on the IUCN Red List, due to a decline of more than 98% within the Caribbean over the last 30 years. Eight other slower-growing coral species are also propagated to ensure the correct mix can be recreated at degraded sites.

To date, Lisa has planted over 4,000 fragments at Laughing Bird Caye National Park, with help from local tour guides, the Belize Fisheries Department and local NGOs.

A view of coral reef in the Laughing Bird Caye National Park from the air. © Anthony B Rath / WWF-Canon

Lisa took us to a site which uses three different techniques to propagate the coral fragments: ropes, metal dome frames and cement discs on tables.

The Staghorn corals are tied to ropes and metal frames, while the Elkhorn coral prefers the stability of being cemented to ‘cookies’ on a table. As we looked at the table garden I noticed one little fish that had already taken particular fancy to the growing coral and was aggressively patrolling his patch in front of my snorkel mask.

Although it sounds like a relatively straightforward process, expertise is needed to know where best to site your nursery (sheltered sites created by neighbouring stag boulder corals are preferred), and also to ensure you are growing fragments of more than one individual. Straight clones would be bad – you want genetic diversity to encourage sexual reproduction.

And that’s where WWF-Belize has stepped in. As well as supporting Lisa’s salary for four years, Nadia provided the critical funds needed to allow fragments of coral to be sent to the Universities of Florida and Pennsylvania to test the genetic make-up of the coral and its symbiotic algae.

This frame has staghorn coral cuttings attached to it – hopefully the start of a new colony. © Paquita Bath

Now Lisa knows that she is growing a mix of heat-resistant male and female corals. And once planted-out, they should go on to spawn and produce new resilient individuals. It’s this climate change-adaptation analysis – identifying the corals most resistant to bleaching and disease – which sets this coral nursery project apart from others around the world.

Lisa told us she allows the nursery fragments to grow to a healthy size and then, along with volunteers, ‘plants’ them within degraded patches of the coral reef.

The ropes are nailed to existing reef structures and the metal frame fragments and cookies are cemented, if fragments can’t be placed in natural nooks and crannies.

A successful colony of coral. © Paquita Bath

When out planting the fragments Lisa tries to follow the natural forms of the corals – and I certainly couldn’t tell which areas had been planted and which were natural!

Laughing Bird Caye was chosen as the pilot location for the restoration work as it’s a World Heritage Site and National Park, so the pressures of overfishing are somewhat reduced. This allows the corals time to fully recuperate, as an over-fished area often has more coral-eating snails – because their natural predator, the spiny lobster, has been removed.

It also made it an unbelievably beautiful place to visit. Excellent for snorkelling too, with a great array of fish and invertebrates, topped off with the picture-perfect white sand of the Caye, inhabited by pelicans and an osprey (though on this occasion the latter was disappointingly reclusive).

We pointed out to Lisa that one criticism of coral restoration projects like these is that they work on a local scale but it wouldn’t be feasible to replant the entire reef. Lisa said she understands this view, and so the next step is for her to check that the out-planted sites are spawning.

It looks idyllic – the Laughing Bird Caye National Park, as seen from the water. © Rebecca Absalom

If Lisa can prove her new sites are helping to reproduce and create new corals, then strategically placed restoration sites should significantly improve the health of the reef.

But nature doesn’t make it easy for her. She has to wait for the right night, sometime between July and September, when it’s a full moon and the corals all take part in a mass spawning event. A site to see, I’m told.

So once Lisa gets the confirmation that her coral restoration sites are spawning, she intends to get serious about replicating the process throughout Belize’s other marine National Parks. Something I hope will take place in the very near future.

Keep up to date with Lisa’s ‘Fragments of Hope’ Facebook page

Playing a part in a safe, secure and affordable energy system will give an energy company a social licence to operate. But what does such an energy system look like? Well, first let’s look at what it doesn’t look like.

Many energy scenarios paint a bleak picture of climate change – with carbon emissions reaching dangerous levels if we end up with nations’ ‘Scramble’ for energy resources, or even if there’s a more co-operative ‘Blueprint’ approach between nations. The International Energy Agency’s chief executive advised that if current energy investment patterns were allowed to continue, this would lock the world into a warming of at least 6°C by the end of the century. The IEA also says that if shale unleashes a new dash for gas, this in itself will take us to more than 3.5°C of warming.

Carbon Tracker describes a ‘carbon bubble’, which will require us not to use 80% of the fossil fuel assets currently listed on international stock exchanges if we are to stay within safe limits of carbon in the atmosphere.  That leaves 20% as burnable, with the rest staying below ground.

Current energy pursuits also present threats to the world’s natural capital that in turn impact on the health of the economy. Beyond the negative effects of increasing climate change on the economy, trillions of dollars worth of ecosystem services are lost every year, according The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity. Strip mining, deep-sea drilling, tailing ponds, exploratory transects and other pressures contribute to this loss in various ways including forest clearance, over-abstraction and pollution of water, and disruption to marine environments.

Fishing has declined around Lake Albert in central Africa and Sakhalin Island off the east coast of Russia due to oil and gas activities. Fisheries and all kinds of other natural capital in Arctic waters are under threat from the increasing scramble for resources, in the absence of adequate oil spill prevention and response technologies suitable for frozen waters. The potential for eco-tourism in such places as the Virunga National Park and Selous Game Reserve in eastern Africa is at risk from possible extractive activities.

Up to 10 million gallons of water are required to frack a single shale-gas well and yet shale reserves coincide with regions enduring intense water stress – already impacting on communities and biodiversity, as well as farming and other industries. There is significant overlap between shale reserves in the US and the areas that have seen record droughts in 2012.

None of this looks good. So what does?

In 2011, WWF and Ecofys produced an energy scenario in the Energy Report. It tests the affordability and feasibility for meeting the world’s increasing needs for energy services through almost 100% renewable energy supplies by 2050 with sococially and environmentally sustainable technologies, a strong drive on energy efficiency, and the electrification of energy provision at every opportunity. The report shows this is achievable with today’s technology.

More details can be found in the energy report itself.

Scenarios – good and bad – are often presented as possibilities and not probabilities; as being dependent on how national and international energy policies evolve in future; and as being highly influenced by the emerging economies. All of this is true of course, but international energy firms also have a great deal of influence – much more than they would freely admit. So, what is their role?

Leading the charge into oil sands, shale gas, the Arctic or the Virunga National Park with arguments such as ‘if we don’t, someone else will’ boil down to a race to the bottom. On the flip side, arguments such as those from Total and WestLB, which advise that the risk from Arctic drilling is too high, and the International Council on Mining and Metals which commits to keeping World Heritage Sites off-limits, begin to give rise to more of a race to the top.

The rapid growth in cleantech industries also supports a race to the top. It presents major opportunities for any energy company and such industries need much greater backing. They are competing with those going after ‘unburnable’ fossil fuels for all kinds of support ­– in the form of public subsidies, private investments, policy frameworks, infrastructures and promotions to the consumer.

The world needs smart engineers and experts to take us to smart energy solutions. Too often, the new generation of energy experts feels it has no option but to seek employment in the incumbent industries, which are still dominated by the old guard who resist change rather than enable it. However, change is afoot. And leading on pathways to a safe energy future will provide firms with a social (and scientific) licence to operate.

As a follow-up to my recent blog post about the great work being done in ‘coral nurseries’ in the Mesoamerican reef region around Belize, here’s a fascinating short video made by our colleague Rhys Gerholdt from WWF’s US office.

‘Even doubling our current rate of decarbonisation, would still lead to emissions consistent with 6 degrees of warming by the end of the century’.  PwC.

‘The world has failed to meet its target to achieve a significant reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss’.  Convention on Biological Diversity.

Optimisation is clearly failing.  We need to think less about improving business and more about new kinds of solutions across value chains that generate significant benefits for social and natural capital.

‘An Inefficient Truth’ was a report out a few years ago discussing the need for business improvement in Information Communications Technology (ICT) to tackle the sector’s fast growing carbon emissions.  The recommendations primarily focussed on addressing the inefficiencies of data centres, data servers and data policies.

Another report released around the same time advised ‘increased carbon emissions from ICT are needed to save the climate’.  Here, the attention was on the roll out of more ICT solutions to displace high carbon activities and bring smart cities, smart buildings, smart logistics and such.

The latter approach has led to businesses such as O2 and BT aiming for carbon savings for their customers that dwarf the companies’ own carbon footprints.  You could apply the same ‘climate positive’ thinking to energy grid operators.

For example, National Grid is well on track to deliver on its excellent target of reducing its carbon emissions by 42% by 2020.  However, perhaps grid operators might focus more on super grids – potentially increasing their footprint – that provide greater interconnection and sharing of geothermal, hydro, solar, and wind supplies across continents in order to reach a renewables-rich energy future.

BASF has taken this thinking on board through its ‘climate protection products’.  These deliver carbon savings for customers that are three times that of the emissions produced during the production of chemicals.   This is the exciting ‘net positive’ agenda that is starting to emerge in pockets of the private sector and we are not just talking carbon.

Rio Tinto aims to have net positive impacts on biodiversity to maintain its access to resources and ecosystems services and enhance its social licence to operate.  Umicore has departed from below-the-ground extraction all together and moved into above-the-ground recycling – ‘urban mining’.

PepsiCo has achieved a ‘positive water balance’ in India – replenishing more water than it uses across its manufacturing operations, essential to protecting resources and reputation.  Kingfisher and Ikea strive to create more forests than they use, boosting resilience in the supply chain.

What better way to unlock the business opportunities arising from the increasing clamour for solutions that restore the world’s essential natural capital than by going net positive?

(Also posted by Green Mondays)

The wisdom of the crowd was particularly evident at our pivotal Net Positive conference. The attendees – 200 sustainability experts – offered many great insights for firms stepping up a gear. Their guide to going net positive is available via Green Mondays.

For a company to reach a net positive result, it’ll need to make efforts right across the value chain.  For instance, what new services could the business offer to customers to support greener and fairer living while providing new business opportunities ahead of a green economy?  What additional restorative steps could its suppliers take to generate positive results on the ground?  And to complete the package, a company can make additional social and ecological investments in reforestation, marine protection or river stewardship, as well as playing a role in improving the governance of natural capital.

The following principles are a good place to start if your business wants to embrace such initiatives and go net positive well.

Recognise the business logic

Globalisation has brought fierce competition across the private sector. In response, many businesses are doing more to address their resource dependencies, enhance their social licence to operate, and create new business opportunities. For example, beverage companies are playing an increasing role in water stewardship as well as ‘replenish’ or ‘recharge’ schemes in order to boost reputations and resources.

Give back

Net positive results are achieved by generating new social and environmental benefits across the value chain that far outweigh the company’s entire footprint.  They also require business interventions that add more than optimisation to the economy and instead drive better functioning energy, food, or transport systems.  For example, Kingfisher’s ambitions around customers creating surplus clean energy go beyond efficiencies and contribute to a cleaner energy system.

Nail relevant issues to be credible

Credibility is reached through the prioritisation of areas to focus on according to the company’s key material risks and opportunities – such as aiming to become forest positive, freshwater positive, marine positive, climate positive, or waste/resource positive. For example, when you think about issues relevant to Ecover, you probably think chemicals and plastics. So Ecover’s current work on water treatment and retrieving waste plastics from the oceans for recycling can create benefits that are particularly relevant to its industry.

Bring business model innovation into the mix

Businesses can embrace all kinds of net positive initiatives across their value chains. But in order to align with a green economy many will also have to fundamentally change direction. For example, the rapid rise of renewables towards grid parity at the utility scale and socket parity in the home in various markets is set to transform the energy landscape. Utilities would do well to adapt in order to avoid stranded assets and pursue new innovative business models to be ‘climate positive’.  See www.wwf.org.uk/innovation

The Net Positive movement will inevitably mature: companies have much to gain by getting smart about giving back. WWF will continue to support businesses in getting this right. Join us on the journey – come to the next event with our director general and our chief executive, at the B4E Net Zero, Climate Positive conference in May.

Leaf muntjac: the world’s second smallest deer species, so small single large tree leaf can wrap its body. Hence the name.
It was first seen by a team of scientists undertaking field surveys in the Himalayan region of northern Myanmar.Sightings of the animal are so rare that scientists have been unable to asses it’s full distribution and status.
© Panthera / Alan Rabinowitz / WWF-Nepal

Wild water buffalo: this once-abundant and well-recognisable Asian icon is now on the brink. Fewer than 4,000 exist in the wild today – that’s almost as low as tigers.
The availability of water is key to their survival, including the water that comes directly from the Mekong River. Their prime habitat is grasslands, swamps and marshlands, thick with vegetation.
© Anton Vorauer / WWF-Canon

Sambar: these are the favourite prey of tigers and Asiatic lions (and the occasional crocodile!) perhaps because they are huge, only next in size to the moose and elk!
They make up nearly 60% of the prey selected by the tiger. Interestingly, the tiger is said to even mimic the call of the sambar to receive it while hunting! But sadly the sambar population in the Greater Mekong is declining due to hunting for wild bush meat and horns.
© Cambodia WWF/FA

Saola: this species has taken on a mythical status. so elusive in fact that it has been named the “Asian unicorn”.
It only occurs in the Annamite mountains of Vietnam and Laos but has never been seen in the wild by scientists. The discovery of the Saola in the early 1990s was hailed as one of the most significant new mammal discovery in the last 70 years but it is threatened by illegal hunting
© David Hulse / WWF-Canon

Ungulates –  mammals with hooves – are a pretty varied bunch of creatures, encompassing everything from domestic cattle like pigs and goats, to wild and increasingly rare species like the Javan rhino and Mountain tapir.

But the ungulates I’m talking about today are quite special, varying from dog-sized deer to antlered creatures so seldom seen that they have taken on a mythical status…

These creatures don’t have the same global spotlight as species like the tiger (also found in the Mekong), but they are incredibly few and far between. Unless we make some noise about the existence of Mekong’s ungulates, they could disappear from this world forever without people even knowing they were here in the first place- quietly sharing our planet.

They are also incredibly important in ecological terms. Many of these ungulates are only found within this particular region of Southeast Asia. They are used as an indicator of the health and ecological integrity of the entire Mekong region, as they face similar threats  to other – harder to survey – species. Their loss would deal a serious blow to the remaining population of endangered tigers that rely on the ungulates as their main food source.

Sadly, these ungulates are threatened from every angle. They get trapped in snares that weren’t intended for them. Others – like sambar, munjac and civets – are targeted specifically for their body parts for the lucrative wildlife trade driven by traditional medicine in China and restaurant and food markets in Vietnam and Laos. If this weren’t enough – the ungulates are losing their habitat at an extraordinary rate: the Greater Mekong countries have lost 42.2 million hectares of forest (that’s 30% forest cover!) between 1973-2009 – the latest report has revealed.

The issues are all connected: habitat destruction has paved the way for Asia’s rural poor and illegal wildlife traders to penetrate further into forests to poach key ungulate species. The loss of these creatures means more competition for food for tigers who are preying on livestock instead, causing additional problems for people who rely on their cattle for food and income.

The problems are varied and complex but as we reveal how much there is to still learn about our natural world and the treasures within in it, the more we can ensure that species like the Mekong ungulates are not forgotten.

Read WWF’s Rumble in the Jungle report here.

Recently I drove the WWF Prius up to the River Nar in Norfolk to meet ITV’s Countrywise team to discuss the state of our nation’s chalk streams, and what we can do to help them.

Kathy in the River Nar with Rupert

Roughly 85% of the 200-odd chalk streams in the world are situated in England. Formed over millennia their clear chalk filtered water has fostered a unique diversity of wildlife and fauna, helped by the cool, constant temperatures and steady flowing waters.

However years of increasing demand has meant many of our rivers are now under threat. Add in pollution from agricultural run off and humanity’s need to tinker with their route to straighten them (altering their flow and habitats) and the rivers are not in a happy place. Indeed, only 25% are classed by the Environment Agency as in ‘good ecological status’.

However it is not all bad.

There is increased concern over our environmental heritage which in many places is translating into action.

We caught up with Countrywise presenter Liz Bonnin to investigate the state of the River Nar with Kathy Hughes (WWF’s freshwater expert and ecologist) to see the work that our partner – Norfolk Rivers Trust – was doing to return the river to its natural, winding state.

The Countrywise team were out in the field and travelling light. This meant alongside their film crew of four was approximately a large van’s worth of equipment.

Filming is a slow process which takes real skill to look natural – think of how much Morecombe and Wise were said to practise their natural ‘spontaneous’ wisecracks. A seemingly short few minutes of film may look effortless but when you look closely it will actually be made up of numerous cuts and takes, establishing shots, close ups, background shots and cutaways to ensure that there is a consistent and coherent narrative. This is done to allow the brain to focus on the content and story – not subconsciously ‘jarring’ at things that don’t flow. Add in going underwater with how ever many thousands of pounds worth of kit, and you have a challenging shoot.

If you realise back in the studio that you’ve missed a shot, you can’t really go back and get it. But as everything shot has to be edited, my preferred technique of shooting tons on the premise that some of it will be good would not be well received.

Countrywise had their own techniques and pretty soon Kathy was chatting naturally onscreen like a seasoned pro – forgetting the blinking great camera trained on her as she waded up and down the river with Liz.

The piece finished, we all packed up, making sure we had left no reminders of our presence, and went our separate ways.

Our trip to the River Nar and seeing our work with the Norfolk Rivers Trust was a great experience. Despite the rise of social media and the general convergence of channels as the boundaries between TV and online blur, broadcast remains a powerful medium that can tell a story like no other. The Nar reminds me how fragile our environment is, yet there is hidden strength that enables it to keep going despite our efforts, but we can’t keep taking without giving something back, which is why the work of groups like the Norfolk Rivers Trust is invaluable.

It gives me hope for the future and makes me realise that we can all do things to make it a little better. That modern life doesn’t have to mean the end of tradition. Technology is a tool that should help us improve and there is a happy medium if we make the effort to find it, instead of taking the easy, short term option. We all have the power to do things differently, be it using less water, stopping leaks or getting a water meter. If we’re able we can even follow the lead of the NRT and spend some time looking after our local green spaces. The difference could mean a fuller, healthier river or area and more Swallows and Amazons.

For me personally, an overriding memory will be from the first day’s filming. Just before we finished that evening, I found myself standing on a bend of the river with David, Norfolk Rivers Trust’s chairman and local resident. As we stood there, enjoying the scene, with only the sounds of the river on the breeze, David pointed upstream, towards the small bridge over the river against a background of slight hills, with a few old houses and a church spire nestled within. “If you look over there, at the homes and the trees, you can see England in the 1920’s.” he said, and I knew what he meant.

As I looked, for a brief moment I was out of time, away from my smartphone and piles of tech, and a machine that went ping. As we stood there in the fading light, listening to the chalk stream murmur, we noticed a water vole sitting on some reeds slightly further up. We looked at the vole, the vole looked at us. The moment was timeless as we contemplated England, our rivers and what they meant to us, our sense of self, our homes and history, and the water vole contemplated its dinner.

The moment passed and we were brought back to 2013 by the soft sweary call of the lesser spotted cameraman as he realised the shot was being ruined by the delicate roar of a common (or garden) fighter jet overhead, most likely a Tornado GR4 from nearby RAF Marham. I looked back to see the vole slip into the water as a lorry trundled over the bridge, belching fumes and clashing gears as it went. Hello again, 21st Century.

We must and can do better.

Kathy Hughes will be interviewed by Liz Bonnin on Countrywise 23rd September on ITV at 8pm.

We have many beautiful wild animals here in Kenya, but for me, one in particular stands out: the Roosevelt Sable antelope – which is unique to the Shimba Hills area of Kwale. And with an estimated population of 70 left – it’s vital that we do all we can to protect them.

Roosevelt Sable antelope is unique to the Shimba Hills
© Elias Kimaru.

So, this month I’m pleased to report that we now have a plan in place to safeguard these creatures.

Sadly, the population of Roosevelt Sable has declined by over 70% in the last 40 years.

Factors leading to their demise include; loss of their habitat, predation by leopards, hyenas, pythons and antelope inbreeding. Another big factor has been people killing the antelope for food and for its hide and horns for use in cultural ceremonies.

Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), WWF and our partners our reacting swiftly to save the Roosevelt Sable antelope and reverse the rapid decline in the population. We have finalised a five year plan to work with the local people of Kwale and help safeguard the its survival for the future.

So far, we have supported the production of posters and banners which will be displayed in schools and other community hubs to raise awareness of the plight of this beautiful endangered animal and to explain what local people can do to help protect it.

We have also been working with local faith leaders to inspire them to use their position in the local community to encourage people to stop killing the antelope for rituals and for its meat. Instead we’re asking them to promote the reasons that they should be preserving it in the wild.

Typically, Roosevelt Sable Antelope eat plants. They eat grass and live in a mixture of open savannah and grassland but avoid open heavily-grazed spaces because of predators.

The Roosevelt Sable antelope conservation and management plan includes monitoring of the existing population and management of their habitat. The plan aims to allow both people and the antelopes to live side by side. In drawing up our plans, we’ve involved local people, including landowners and farmers.

It really is wonderful news that we are working  together with local people in Kwale to save and conserve Roosevelt Sable Antelope. And I am hopeful the strategy and our work will help make the local community view the antelope differently and make them become proud of the fact that they are lucky enough to live in the only place in Kenya which is home to this wonderful creature.

Can you remember as a child being so excited about something that you found yourself holding your breath?

Well I feel like I’ve been holding my breath every day for weeks now, as we wait to hear the government’s announcement of new marine protected areas – so-called Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) – to protect some of the best biodiversity in our seas. While waiting, I decided to find out for how long some marine wildlife can hold its breath.

Sperm whales can hold their breath while diving for over an hour and elephant seals for around two hours.

Harbour seals found around our own coastline – but currently in serious decline – can hold their breath for 30 minutes. while for a walrus it is around 10 minutes.

The world record for a human freediver is 11 minutes and 35 seconds

Individuals from a marine community in south-east Asia regularly free dive for 5 minutes while hunting for food.

For me, it is only around two minutes and even that is hard!

Grey seal beneath cliffs by Alexander Mustard

I also started thinking recently about how long it takes to provide the urgently needed protection for marine wildlife and habitats. A colleague recently reminded me that we have been working towards better regulation for our seas for over 15 years now. It was in the 1990s that we started calling for new legislation to improve the management of our seas and the protection of marine wildlife. We were celebrating four years ago in 2009 when the Marine and Coastal Access Act (MCAA) was adopted and the designation of MCZs became a possibility.

Improvements in the management of the seas and protection of marine wildlife seemed assured, even more so when the first MCZ was adopted for the waters around Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel in January 2010. However since then progress has been breathtakingly slow, and I am still metaphorically – not literally – holding my breath for the first tranche of them to be announced.

In June this year, I wrote about the presentation of 350,000 pledges supporting their designation, which leading conservation charities – WWF UK included –  handed to Downing Street, hoping that this would provide the Government with a mandate for swift and effective action. But time is running out if the first tranche of MCZs are to be adopted this year.

MCZs were originally conceived as a new type of marine protected area which, alongside existing designations of Special Areas for Conservation (SACs) for habitats and species of European importance, Special Protection Areas (SPAs) for birds, Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and Ramsar sites to protect wetlands, would be used to design and create an ecologically coherent network of areas. As MCZs can only be designated in English inshore and English and Welsh offshore waters, similar initiatives are underway in Wales and Scotland and will be in Northern Ireland to eventually create a UK-wide network that will ensure that the full range of marine biodiversity found in the UK’s seas will be afforded some level of protection.

While waiting for the announcement on which of the 31 sites currently under consideration will be designated, it is important to remember that these are a far cry from the 127 sites originally recommended in September 2011 by the government’s statutory advisors, following a two and half year consultation process involving a million stakeholders.

The continued delay in designating the first tranche of MCZs is even more worrying since it is now well over a year since the government’s statutory advisors also identified those sites at greatest risk and where early designation was important. Of the original 127 sites, the government’s own advisors considered 59 sites to be at higher risk of damage or deterioration and meriting early designation – clearly significantly more than we are anticipating will be included in the announcement.

Four years after the adoption of new legislation – two years after the publication of 127 recommended MCZs – and eight months after the government consultation on the first 31 sites concluded, we are still waiting for exciting news on a suite of new marine protected areas. But forgive me if I am not tempted to try to hold my breath in anticipation. Not even a sperm whale can wait that long.

Standing on the east bank of the Beni River in northern Bolivia, I wondered how the afternoon might unfold. With my colleague Marcela, I was waiting for the boat that would take us to the town of San Buenaventura on the opposite bank. The road from San Buenaventura north to the town of Ixiamas is about to be converted from a dirt track into an asphalted highway. We were here, thanks to support from Sky’s Rainforest Rescue,  to discuss the impacts this might have with the Indigenous Tacana people whose territory the road crosses.

Tacana locals on motorbike on on the Ixiamas – San Buenaventura Road

But first we had to get to the west bank. The Beni River is not big by the standards of the Amazon basin. It’s ‘only’ about a 1,000 km from its source in the Andes to the point at which it joins the Mamoré River. The Mamoré  River then flows into the Madeira River which in turn flows into the mighty Amazon.

So the water we are about to cross still has thousands of kilometres to travel before it reaches the Atlantic Ocean.

But if you imagined that this little known tributary would be rather inconsequential you should think again. The Beni River at San Buenaventura is wider than the Thames is in central London – and faster flowing.

The boat arrived to take us across, and we climbed aboard with men, women and children whose nonchalance implied that this is an everyday occurrence. I did my best to emulate. Fifteen minutes later when we disembarked I got my first taste of Bolivian road negotiations. Marcela began to negotiate the onward journey with one of the drivers who make a living transporting people from the quayside. Perhaps unexpectedly price was not the problem, instead the major stumbling point related to whether the driver’s wife would accompany us. When it became clear that the absent spouse’s current location was uncertain (she might still have been on the other side of the river) Marcela brought the negotiation to a swift close and the driver reluctantly started the engine. It never was clear to me where the driver’s wife needed to go, or with what degree of urgency, but I like to imagine that it all worked out well for her in the end.

The Ixiamas – San Buenaventura Road is effectively the eastern edge of one of the Amazon’s great nature reserves, the Madidi National Park, which is also a major eco-tourism attraction in the region.

Development is coming- the construction of a sugar mill, in a region where little sugar cane is currently grown.

As we made our way north along the dirt track, we caught glimpses of hills covered with thick vegetation on our left, whilst on our right we saw the signs of development – expanding cattle pasture and the site of a massive sugar mill being built by a Chinese company.

We reached Tumapasa – the main town of the Tacana - 90 minutes later and headed for the CIPTA offices. CIPTA is a grassroots organisation that represents and organises the Tacana Community. At the office two young men in modern dress, Aizar and Marcelo, were waiting for us. They greeted us with casual confidence and in Spanish. We went inside the office – a room which obviously gets used for meetings, storage and all manner of other things – and sat down at a plastic table. I wanted to talk about the road, but they produced a computer and projector, and a power point presentation began.

The presentation was much more interesting than many I have endured. Amongst other things, they showcased potential earnings from crocodile farming and the sale of fabrics to tourists and presented  management plans for sustainable timber production. This was obviously not an indigenous people being swept aside by the advance of the modern world, but one that is used to taking control of its own destiny.

Perhaps unexpectedly the road was not the main theme of the presentation. Certainly they have their concerns about the pollution resulting from the road’s construction and the possibility that it will encourage more competition for land from non-indigenous settlers. 

Aizar and Marcelo- Indigenous Tacana at the CIPTA Office

To the Tacana, the road is one of many issues that relate to their land and their livelihoods. Their territory is a landscape that has always produced multiple goods and services. And – if they continue to have a say – it always will.

The trick is making sure that they do have their say. And that is what WWF and our partners are trying to ensure happens during and after the road upgrade.

On the road back to San Buenaventura I reflected on our conversation. The Tacana have long since understood something those of us interested in conservation also increasingly recognise: that landscapes can only rarely be managed for one thing, such as biodiversity. Instead, they have to satisfy a broad range of interests and needs. And mutually negotiated compromises between those interests are the route to sustainability. WWF-Bolivia’s work on the road is a point of departure for engaging with a broader landscape of diverse opportunities.

A recent visit with WWF-Brazil’s freshwater team to the Pantanal and Paraguay River Basin got me thinking….

As one of the world’s largest and best conserved wetlands, the Pantanal provides essential ecosystem services such as tourism, purifying water and regulating climate

Everyone knows that water is essential for life, but I often wonder if the reality of just how connected and vital freshwater is to our day to day lives is ever really given a second thought, unless we turn on a tap and it doesn’t work!

In the UK we have the luxury of rarely needing to worry about water shortages. Although – in the Spring of 2012 – I remember the South of the UK being on the verge of a hose pipe ban after a particularly dry winter (just before the awful summer of rain hit)! The prospect of a hose pipe ban seemed dramatic to us and yet would barely impact on our livelihoods or quality of life. It would still allow us to access clean, running freshwater.

The same can’t be said for the changing global climate, which has much more significant impact on the quality and abundance of water around the world than a simple hose pipe ban.

The Pantanal – the world’s largest wetland – is located in the middle of South America.  About half the size of France – it spans the borders of Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil – with approximately 80% of the wetlands lying in central west Brazil.

A bird takes flight from the wetlands, which provide a home to a huge array of biodiversity whose survival is dependent on the region’s annual flooding cycle
© WWF-Brasil / Sergio-Amaral

The pristine wetlands are home to an incredible array of rich biodiversity. Thousands of water bird, plant, fish and reptile species thrive in the endless patchwork of lakes, lagoon, rivers and marshes. You’ll find howler monkeys, jaguars, hyancinth macaws, anancondas and more. But this biodiversity cannot survive and thrive without the annual flooding cycle of the region.  This flood pulse is driven by the annual rains and is essential to maintain the hydrological integrity of the Pantanal and conserve the species living there.

Due to the nature of the flooding landscape, development in the Pantanal has been limited (and its natural value has been used for eco-tourism). This isn’t the case for the surrounding areas.  The biggest threat is not actually felt in the wetland itself, but in the upstream headwater areas maintaining water flows. Here the expansion of the agricultural frontier is an immediate issue.

In Brazil, the clearance of natural forest to make way for industry and agriculture over the years has been well documented and continues to be an issue.  Land owners are legally required to protect the springs and rivers running through their land by maintaining an area of forest around them, but often there is little compliance.

The connection of water flows and cycles between the developing areas and the wetlands is critical.

The River Paraguay is a focus of our work through the HSBC Water Programme; protecting it in turn ensures a healthy flow of water to the wetlands
©Karina-Berg

Water in the Pantanal can only be as pristine as the rivers and springs that supply it. That’s why we – through the HSBC Water Programme – focus on protecting the Paraguay River and its tributaries, which provide a large amount of the water that feeds the wetlands.

One of the issues is occurs when eroded soil and silt is carried downstream to the wetlands – impacting river flows (often clogging them up) – which in turn impacts on the biodiversity and its life cycles.  Weakened river banks lead to increased flood potential, which could be catastrophic to local communities.

We protect, maintain and restore forests on the river edges along the springs and rivers in the headwaters. Roots from vegetation and forests strengthen the river banks to enable greater resilience to erosion.   This brings benefits not only for the Pantanal, but also for the surrounding communities.

There are also obvious benefits gained from minimising pollution from agricultural pesticides or non-treated sewage.

Croc on the Panthanal ©WWF-Brasil / Sergio-Amara

As we made our way from the Pantanal to the banks of the River Paraguay in the headwaters, local communities spoke of similar things. They are seeing less rain each year, less water in the rivers and wetlands, a decrease in water quality and – for fisherman – a huge decrease in the number of fish yielded each year.

This is a strong testament to how a changing climate coupled with the region’s steady growth and development is affecting the quality of lives and livelihoods.

These comments alone confirmed the need for collaborative efforts across the region to protect their natural water springs and our goal is to do just that.

We are taking positive action to unite local and national government institutions, the rural sector, civil societies and NGOs to develop and implement a functioning, formalised pact. One that will see them become guardians of their springs and rivers and ultimately protect that vital life-giver: water.

Find out more about the HSBC Water Programme

My name is Ramesh Thapa and I am Assistant Chief Warden of Bardia National Park, Nepal. I’ve worked as a wildlife ranger since 1982,  and I am married with three children. Here’s a little bit about what I do and why.

Ranger Ramesh Thapa, Nepal © WWF UK

Life as a ranger

Since my childhood nature has always fascinated me and that is why I chose my career in conservation. After 31 years of being at the forefront of wildlife conservation, I feel that there is still so much to achieve. Conservation has become very challenging with growing human greed and need. But I take this challenge as an opportunity to carry out my passion to protect biodiversity.  I work to protect our iconic species including tigers and rhinos while at the same time ensuring that local communities that live close to protected areas do so in harmony with nature and wildlife. There is a lot of risk associated with my work – at times life-threatening – but I continue to help protect wildlife.

Zero Poaching

Indian rhinoceros, Chitwan National Park, Nepal © Michael Gunther / WWF-Canon

Zero poaching is the need of the hour and requires commitments from national to the grassroots levels to address poaching – the biggest threat to wildlife. With hundreds of endangered animals especially rhinos being killed in Africa and India, it is a matter of pride for us that we have been able to control poaching in Nepal and were able to celebrate a ‘zero poaching’ year for rhinos up to the end of February 2014. This is the second time Nepal has achieved this success with the first ‘zero poaching’ year in 2011.  All this was possible because of the support received from the Government of Nepal, enforcement agencies, conservation partners and the local communities. However, along with the success there are bigger challenges too which prompts us to continue our effort dauntlessly.

You can help rangers like Ramesh to end wildlife crime by adopting an animal

What do you think of Ramesh’s story? Leave us a comment.

Many of us will be familiar with the different species of tuna that are traded internationally in cans, fresh, frozen steaks and sushi. However, the importance of tuna is far greater than as a filling in a sandwich with mayo.

Yellowfin tuna shoal, Pacific Ocean, Mexico. Copyright: Naturepl.com / Doc White / WWF-Canon

Fishing for tuna is carried out in the tropical and sub-tropical waters of the world where the fish migrate around all of the world’s oceans. The different species of tuna all have different characteristics: size, weight, sexual maturity, the number of eggs laid, how deep and where they swim.

Some tuna species like the Bluefin tuna are majestic animals. They can reach up to 4 metres long and weigh near to 680kg – that is heavier than a horse! While most fish are cool-blooded, Bluefin tuna are almost like warm-blooded animals (just like you and me) as their body temperature is higher than the surrounding sea water.

Their warm bodies allow them to swim very fast, to nearly 15km per hour, so that they can chase their prey or avoiding a hungry shark. They are also great adventurers because they travel across the oceans; from US to Japan in the Pacific and from Europe to US in the Atlantic.

Human impacts on Tuna

Catching tuna for human consumption has unfortunately had some dramatic impacts. Some of the tuna fisheries now have very low numbers such as the Southern Bluefin tuna stock or the Eastern Atlantic Bluefin tuna stock which are highly valued for sushi. Last year one fish sold for £1 million – these stocks are classified as ‘Critically Endangered’ and ‘Endangered’ (respectively).

Other species such as the Skipjack are more fortunate because they have much bigger populations, and even though it is fished quite heavily, due to its biological characteristics it is less vulnerable to over-exploitation. They are much smaller, faster at growing and reproducing and of lower value – so for these reasons it is found in our cans.

In addition to these there are also the Yellowfin, Bigeye and Albacore tuna which can be found in our shops. Each species has stocks in different parts of our oceans and has different levels of pressure. Because of this reason, stock for each species needs to be considered under separate assessments to determine if it is sustainable or not.

Most of the tuna that we eat comes from fisheries that are in the middle of the ocean (high seas) or are a good way from the shore – I would be surprised if you were to stand with a rod on the shore and ever catch a tuna! Therefore you need a boat.

Vessels that catch tuna

Around the world, vessels that catch tuna vary greatly from huge ‘purse-seine’ vessels and industrial ‘longliners’ to small artisanal vessels that land into local markets. Often the large vessels travel thousands of miles for many days across the oceans to rich fishing grounds or to transport the catch to factories. For island states such as those in the Pacific and Indian Oceans fishing for tuna provides jobs and income to thousands of people.

Funae fishermen catching skipjack tuna near Manado Tua, Indonesia. Copyright: Jürgen Freund WWF-Canon

For remote island nations tuna fisheries contribute millions of dollars to their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employ thousands of fisher-folk. In the Western Central Pacific where more than half of the total global tuna occur, the determination for collaborative management to protect this important natural resource has led to the creation of the Parties to the Nauru agreement (PNA).

Third party certification

Eight island nations are party to the PNA and within their jurisdiction have approximately a quarter of the world’s tuna catch. Similarly the Maldives have also worked very hard to manage their pole and line tuna fishery. The free-school skipjack fishery and the pole and line skipjack fishery have managed to achieve the highest standard of sustainable certification available to a fishery, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). Unfortunately not many of the world’s tuna fisheries have managed to achieve this certification yet, but hopefully there will be more in the future.

What we’re doing to help

WWF encourages the seafood industry to improve fisheries to the MSC standard so that this will ensure the sustainability of tuna stocks, the balance of the ecosystem and the livelihoods for those dependent upon it – far into the future. We’re working at the national level trying to ensure that UK companies are sourcing responsibly and are investing in projects that will improve the sustainability of the tuna fisheries. We are also supporting our colleagues in the tropics who are working at the regional and international level, generating improvements to fishing regulations that will support the sustainable management and exploitation of this highly important species.

What you can do to help

Look for the blue MSC logo when you choose your favourite canned tuna or sandwich so that you know they come from sustainable tuna fisheries.

Do you buy sustainable tuna? What do you think of Tracy’s blog? Leave us a comment.

At a time when the world’s most eminent climate scientists have produced their report on climate change impacts, adaptation and resilience, we’re reminded why climate change represents such a serious threat to species, habitats and communities which WWF has spent 50 years working to protect.

A planet on a plate © LiveWell for LIFE

Recognising those threats, we have several programmes focusing on finding solutions to some of the global-scale problems that contribute to climate change. One such programme is LiveWell for LIFE – a project that looks at health, nutrition, carbon emissions and affordability and demonstrates how low-carbon, healthy diets can help us achieve a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the European Union’s (EU) food supply chain.

The food system as we know it – agricultural production, food processing, transportation, retailing and food waste – is a big contributor to climate change. It accounts for almost a third of the EU’s consumption-related greenhouse gas emissions, and is responsible for biodiversity loss and deforestation, mainly in places far from European borders.

In terms of health impacts, the current global food system is also imbalanced with over 840 million people worldwide being chronically undernourished, yet 1.5 billion people being overweight.

If we want our ecosystems and biodiversity to thrive – for the benefit of people as well as nature – we need to start looking at food in a different way and we need to start aspiring for a better, more sustainable food system.

Since 2011, the LiveWell for LIFE team has been working hard to encourage debate on this issue around the EU. They recently hosted Value your food – a conference intended to encourage a collaborative approach towards a more sustainable food system. The event was held at our Living Planet Centre, giving the delegates who attended an opportunity to visit our new HQ. I was happy to welcome them, and to sit in for a few of the presentations and discussions.

One of the things that we all took from the conference is that everyone bears responsibility for shaping the future of food: retailers, producers, governments and consumers to name but a few of the actors involved. Everyone has an important role to play if we want to succeed and change things for the better.

Value your food conference audience, Living Planet Centre © LiveWell for LIFE

A number of these stakeholders were present at Value your food; the speakers and the audience were drawn from a wide variety of sectors. It was a mixed crowd, and I was pleased to see two conclusions emerging clearly from the event: firstly, that the right people are involved in the debate and secondly, that we have the expertise and many of the solutions needed to move toward a truly sustainable food system.

The challenge – therefore – is identifying how to take this collaborative approach forward. As Value your food concluded, we certainly got a feeling that the discussions were not going to lose momentum once the delegates left the building. And they shouldn’t – there is no better time than now to start having these debates and converting them into actions that can help our food system play its part in addressing climate change.

I’m delighted that as an organisation we are creating space for these important discussions to take place, and that so many other stakeholders are joining us around this particular table.

Read more about the IPCC report

What are your views on the impact of climate change on food? Leave us a comment on David’s blog.

Photographer Ashley Cooper has spent more than a decade documenting the impacts of climate change. Here, he shares some of his most memorable images, and tells me his thoughts about the problems – and solutions.

Tell us what you’ve learned about the planet on your travels

I have photographed the impacts of climate change on all seven continents, a project that I started 11 years ago. In that time I have put together the world’s largest collection of climate change imagery. In my travels I have marvelled at some of the most awe-inspiring and dramatic landscapes on the planet. It has taught me how interconnected the planet’s natural systems and processes are.

Humans evolved as just one insignificant species, but have grown to dominate the planet. Our actions are destroying the very life systems we need to support us. We have polluted rivers and oceans, torn up forests, drained wetlands and exploited many species. All of this has had a negative impact on other wildlife. Climate change though is in a different league. It has the capacity to completely unbalance the climate and weather systems that make life on the planet sustainable.

What inspired you to focus on climate change?

I first heard of climate change about 15 years ago. I read more and more and became more interested. I was looking for a bit more focus in my work and I decided on my first climate change photo shoot in 2004 to Alaska. What I saw convinced me that this was something I needed to turn into my life’s work. My shoot looked at glacial retreat, forest fires and permafrost melt.

But for me the most moving part was the week I spent on Shishmaref – a tiny island between Alaska and Siberia that is home to 600 Inuits. As subsistence hunter-gatherers they have a tiny carbon footprint and are least responsible for climate change, but most severely impacted by it. The animals they relied upon for food were migrating further north to find cooler temperatures, making it harder for them to hunt. The sea ice used to form around Shishmaref in late September, protecting it from autumn and winter storms. Today the sea ice doesn’t form till maybe Christmas. Any storms before the sea ice forms are destroying the Inuits’ houses.

Where else have you seen the effects of climate change?

Some of the most obvious impacts of climate change are on the world’s glaciers. I have documented glacial retreat in the Alps, Himalayas, Canada, South America, Greenland, Svalbard and Antarctica. All this excess water reaching the world’s oceans is – in part – causing sea level rise. I visited Tuvalu in the Pacific – a low-lying nation – during the highest tides of the year. Parts of the main island were three feet under water. Tuvalu – along with the Maldives – will be among the first places to disappear as a result of climate change.

In Australia I saw the impacts of the drought and forest fires. And in some areas of China, huge swathes of countryside have been abandoned as deserts have taken over what was once reasonably productive land – they have taken to cloud seeding in an attempt to create rain. Closer to home, the increasing impact of severe weather events has led to an increase in flooding in the UK, which I have documented for 10 years.

Where are the biggest challenges?

The most depressing photo shoot I have ever undertaken was to document the tar sands in northern Alberta, Canada. Tar sands are the most destructive and environmentally damaging projects on the planet. They cause mass deforestation, pollution of the river systems and the resulting synthetic oil has a carbon footprint that’s greater than that of normal crude oil.

What do you think the solutions are?

We need to move rapidly to a low-carbon economy. Only then will we stand a chance of avoiding the worst excesses of climate change. We need to value energy and use much less of it. Moving to local generation from renewables will save the huge wastes of energy involved in national grid systems. We need to eat much less meat, especially beef which has a huge carbon footprint, and source our food locally to cut down on food miles.

Most important of all, we need to persuade the world’s governments to stop paying billions in subsidies to the fossil fuel industries, and instead focus those subsidies on renewable energy solutions.

My recent shoot for WWF-India looked at how small-scale solar power is providing power for the first time to people who had no access to electricity. Projects like this really show us the way forward – and what can be achieved.

What are you doing to help with climate change? What do you think of Kate’s blog? Leave us a comment.

Drought in Lake Hume Victoria, Australia © GWI / WWF-Canon

Bush fires, Australia © GWI / WWF-Canon

Mer du Glace melting in summer heat, Chamonix, France © GWI / WWF-Canon

Women building solar cookers at the Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan, India © GWI / WWF-Canon

Shishmaref, a tiny island between Alaska and Siberia in the Chukchi sea © GWI / WWF-Canon

Chopped down Boreal forest near a tar sands mine, Alberta, Canada © GWI / WWF-Canon

Battle against global warming, Funafuti atol, Tuvalu © GWI / WWF-Canon

As WWF’s Country Director for the Democratic Republic of Congo, Raymond Lumbuenamo is closer than many to the events playing out in Virunga – Africa’s oldest national park.  At a crucial time for the park’s future and the people who rely on it, Raymond is bringing his message of hope for Virunga’s future to the UK. Here’s what he had to say to us…

“It’s official – SOCO International, the London-based oil company which has being exploring for oil in Virunga, Africa’s oldest national park, have today made a commitment to withdraw from the park. What’s more, they have also committed to not undertake operations in any other World Heritage Site.  This is a momentous day for Virunga, including the species which inhabit this unique wilderness, and the people who rely on it for their livelihoods.”

Children playing in Vitshumbi fishing village, Virunga National Park. Copyright: Brent Stirton / Reportage for Getty Images / WWF-Canon

“I am delighted by this news, and grateful to the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who have stood with the people of North Kivu to call for an alternative, sustainable future for Virunga. But this is a battle won in the war to protect Virunga in the long term.  Following SOCO’s announcement, we have removed the most immediate threat to the park.  But with over 85 percent of the park still under oil concessions defined by the DRC government, the threat of oil remains.”

“Now is the time for the DRC government to reaffirm its conviction that Virunga has outstanding universal value for all humanity by cancelling all oil concessions overlapping the park as requested by UNESCO.”

Sunrise over Mount Mikeno, Virunga National Park. Copyright: @naturepl.com / Christophe Courteau / WWF-Canon

“If kept free from potentially-damaging oil exploitation, Virunga could develop into a leading economic driver for communities in the eastern DRC by developing ecotourism, sustainable fisheries and hydropower.  The Dalberg report (PDF) published by us when the Virunga campaign launched last year found that – with sustainable development – the park could grow in value to US$400 million per year.”

“Through responsible investment and continued protection, World Heritage Sites can become powerful engines for sustainable economic development and long-term prosperity in their regions. Virunga’s fisheries, hydropower plants and ecotourism industry have the potential to generate 45,000 permanent jobs for nearby residents.”

A baby gorilla, Virunga National Park. Copyright: Brent Stirton / Reportage for Getty Images / WWF-Canon

“To realise this, the international community also has a role to play in supporting the DRC in building a positive, oil-free, future for Virunga, by supporting efforts to bring lasting stability and prosperity to the eastern DRC.”

“UNESCO has maintained since 2003 – and restated as recently as February this year – that oil and gas extraction in World Heritage Sites violates the spirit of the World Heritage Convention. There is a growing recognition among governments and industry leaders that places – like Virunga – with undeniable universal value are too precious to be exploited.  For it is only when we truly value something for its inherent value that we are willing to come together to protect it.”

Raymond Lumbuenamo is WWF’s Country Director for the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Put your name to the campaign – so we can continue our work to help protect World Heritage Sites like Virunga.

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We environmentalists don’t often talk about what our politicians are doing well. It’s human nature to take these things for granted and concentrate on the areas where improvements are needed. Well here’s something…

…In 2008, the UK government became the first country in the world to introduce a Climate Change Act. The current government has continued to show leadership on the international stage by arguing for stronger EU wide greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets as well as pushing for an ambitious global deal on Climate Change.

Drax power plant, Yorkshire © Global Warming Images / WWF-Canon

Given the pride our government takes in being seen as a leader on tackling climate change, it is surprising and disappointing that the UK has come out joint top with Germany in a league table published today which exposes the 30 most polluting power stations in Europe.

The report – Europe’s Dirty Thirty – finds that 9 of the 30 power stations with the highest carbon emissions are in the UK. All of the top thirty plants are coal fired power stations.

The UK’s coal power stations were built mainly in the 1960s and 1970s. These huge behemoths have toiled away over the years providing valuable electricity throughout the country and now average around 45 years old. Unfortunately these old plants have now become an environmental liability and are churning out carbon emissions and damaging air pollution at an unacceptable rate.

So which of the UK’s power stations are the most polluting?

The huge Drax comes in top of the UK plants in the ‘Dirty 30’ list. To be fair to Drax, while it is the dirtiest in terms of absolute emissions, it is one of the most efficient (or least inefficient) of the coal power stations on the list which manage an unimpressive average of around 36 percent efficiency.

Table of UK power plants by emissions

Particularly surprising perhaps is that two of the biggest are owned by EDF. Why is that surprising? Because EDF have spent a lot of money branding themselves as green. Remember the green version of the Union Jack on billboards up and down the country?

What is the government doing to make sure coal doesn’t scupper UK climate targets?

By 2030 emissions from generating electricity must be cut to around 10 percent of today’s level. This leaves no room for coal.
So what’s the government doing about this? Astonishingly not only are they doing nothing to close the coal. They seem to be working pretty hard to keep it open. Notably:

• A government new policy, the capacity market, will give large payments to coal plants and help cover the cost of major upgrades required to extend their lives beyond the early 2020s
• The government has resisted closing the so called ‘coal loophole’ in the 2013 Energy Bill which exempts existing power stations from  meeting carbon intensity limits which apply to new power stations
• The Chancellor announced at the 2014 budget that the UKs carbon floor price will be frozen at its 2016 level until 2020.

Coal is the biggest single contributor to climate change worldwide. Global coal reserves are several multiples of what can be burnt if we are to keep temperature rises below two degrees centigrade. As the Committee on Climate Change stressed last week in its annual progress report to government, the longer we leave taking action to cut our emissions, the costlier it becomes.

Burning coal is so carbon intensive and so polluting that it should be completely eliminated from the UK’s electricity supply mix by the early to mid-2020s. Any government which is serious about tackling climate change must have the courage to introduce policies which will force coal to close. Only then will the UK be a true leader on climate change.

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Last month, our Corporate Partnerships team hosted its first major partnership event ‘Getting down to business with WWF’. Held at The Living Planet Centre (our new eco-home in Woking), it was a great platform for our corporate partners and corporate friends to network with one another, be inspired by their partnerships and discuss some shared issues facing the future of business.

One of our Ambassadors – Sir Stuart Rose – provided an inspirational keynote speech encouraging businesses in their sustainability journey with great humour and candour.

Our guests networking in the Partnerships Gallery © Hugh Mehta

Working in partnership with corporates is vital to us achieving its mission for a world in which people and nature thrive. The event has helped stimulate thought for innovative solutions to improve sustainability and explore ways to become more responsible in the business environment. In our Partnership Gallery, we exhibited our work with our partners, displaying a range of projects across the globe covering significant topics such as:

• business sustainability
• water stewardship
• sustainable timber and seafood
• climate change
• preserving the rainforest and oceans
• keeping rivers flowing
• wildlife conservation
• employee engagement and consumer sustainability communications.

Some of the displays in our Partnerships Gallery © Hugh Mehta

We also had various experts on these topics from around our network available to answer questions. It was great to see so many of our guests engage with one another and be inspired by the partnership displays.

We’ve been working with businesses for over 25 years and I am proud to say that many of our partnerships have won awards for various achievements; most recently the Sky Rainforest Rescue awarded for best External Communications Campaign at the 2Degrees Champions Awards and the Coca-Cola partnership achieved highly commended in the Business Charity Awards.

However, our success is also due to the joint collaboration and close relationships that we are proud to have with our partners, powering the impacts and achievements for business, people and the planet.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our guests who attended as well as Marks and Spencers and Miller Brands for supplying the event. We look forward to hosting more events in the future for our partners and friends and with more inspirational speakers.

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