July 2010

Recycle Your Bottles, Build A Boat!

It Sailed 15,000km from San Francisco to Sydney Harbour

A boat that has been made out of 12,500 plastic bottles has completed it's maiden voyage from San Francisco, arriving in Sydney Harbour on Monday with it's small crew of six, after a four-month long trip across the Pacific Ocean.

The boat was named Plastiki and was built using plastic bottles and organic glue, to raise awareness of the increasing environmental damage being caused by plastics around the world. Other parts of the catamaran, like the sails, are made out of recycled materials.

The Big Butterfly Count

The High Brown Fritillary

Today marks the beginning of a national Butterfly count, as part of the Making Butterflies Count campaign which began in 2010, and set up by Marks and Spencer as part of their new environmental commitment to encourage sustainable agriculture.

With 58 different species of butterfly and more than 2,500 moths, the British countryside was once littered with these delicate, colourful animals but today half of our native moth and butterfly species are threatened in the wild, and 64 have become extinct in the last century.

Leaping Whale Lands On Yacht

Copyright bbc.co.uk

Southern Right Whales are normally found in the deep, cold waters of the Antarctic Ocean but one of the world's largest and most secretive mammals made headlines yesterday after launching itself onto someone's boat.

An unsuspecting couple who where whale-whaling on their yacht, claim to have had a lucky escape when a 10m long Southern Right Whale leapt out of the water before colliding with their boat and sliding back into the ocean blue.

The Rarest Animals In The World

The Rare Vancouver Island Marmot

Over the years, the human race has expanded more and more rapidly leaving a trail of environmental damage in the process. The biggest impacts on our planet are caused by pollution and deforestation, which means the loss of habitat for some of the world's rarest species.

But, at a time when we are becoming more aware of the destruction we have caused and are looking more and more to conserving the world's habitats, how many of us actually know which animals are our rarest? Here are the 10 rarest animals in the world:

The Biggest Environmental Disaster Of Our Time

Oil In Gulf Of Mexico

On April 20th 2010, the biggest environmental disaster of modern times occurred with the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The rig, which was drilling for natural crude oil and gas through 500ft of water, suddenly exploded sadly killing 11 people and injuring 17 others.

This devastating occurrence meant that there was now a crack in one of the pipes deep in the ocean, causing oil to start spilling out into the surrounding water from the well. With efforts at being able to cap (seal off) the leaking well moving at a slow pace, an oil slick soon formed on the water's surface covering an area of 2,500 square miles.

Good News For Madagascan Conservation

A Rare Bamboo Lemur

When we think of conservation, our immediate thoughts go out to tigers and rhinos on the brink of extinction in Asia but little do we think about the conservation of the plants that surround them, and the role that all these species play in a very delicate eco-system.

Deforestation for both logging and to clear land for commercial plantations has been happening around the world for years now, and on such a vast scale that the deforestation process actually now accounts for around 20% of the world's total carbon dioxide emissions.

Hopes to Double Wild Tiger Population

Year Of The Tiger 2010

WWF has recently announced that it is aiming to double the world's wild tiger population in the next 12 years. This year is the Chinese Year of the Tiger, and with an estimated 3,200 wild tigers left roaming the Asian forests, increased conservation efforts are being made to ensure the stability of this species by the next Year of the Tiger in 2022.

Tigers are the largest of the world's cats and we have seen the loss of 3 tiger sub-species over the past 100 years, with the 5 remaining tiger sub-species being critically endangered in the wild today. So why is it that this majestic creature is more numerous in US zoos alone, than it is found patrolling it's natural habitat?