Ecuador, Guatemala, Brazil, and Mexico send delegates of Pride:
Aspiring conservation educators from around Latin America are lining up for Rare’s newest “Pride University”, the training center just launched in partnership with the University of Guadalajara. The first class includes educators from Mexico to Brazil, united by a common goal: to save threatened species and fragile natural areas, while building Latin American pride in the environment. Beginning late this year, campaigns will be underway across the western hemisphere focusing on saving valuable marine habitat in Baja California to the protection of endangered primates in Brazil’s Atlantic forests.
Land of the red panda and golden monkey inspire new conservation efforts:
In the remote mountains of Southwest China, approximately 25 different ethnic groups have lived in partial isolation since ancient times– together with the remaining populations of giant pandas, red pandas, golden monkeys, and snow leopards. In September, RARE launched two Pride campaigns in the region, a place of unparalleled beauty and biodiversity. Partnering with Conservation International and the Nature Conservancy, both of the year-long campaigns will focus on raising environmental awareness in the Northwest region of the Yunnan Province and creating a powerful constituency for conservation to fight mounting pressures of agricultural and population expansion, mass tourism, logging, illegal hunting and the wildlife trade.
Fiji Petrel fights extinction with help from Milika Ratu
The Fiji petrel, or Pterodroma macgillivrayi, is a critically endangered bird species that spends much of its life at sea and was thought to be extinct until its rediscovery in 1983. Since then, 8 more have been spotted and it has been listed as “critical” by the IUCN and Birdlife International, which means that it has a 50 % chance of becoming extinct in the next 5 years. The bird is under continuous threat from habitat loss due to logging and introduced species, particularly rats and cats. But a pride campaign aimed at raising environmental awareness among the isolated island communities of Fiji is using the bird to inspire pride in Fijian natural resources. In fact, campaign coordinator Milika Ratu, spent the last few weeks boating to and from isolated villages to do school visits in her giant Fiji Petrel costume.