60.4m cast vote for conservation projects: EOCA reveals winners
26/05/2017
Three projects were chosen during a public vote that reached 60.4 million, and a further three were chosen by EOCA members.
These are to be funded from membership fees and fundraising monies raised from the European outdoor Industry.
In addition, members POMOCA, KEEN and Osprey Europe have also each chosen a specific conservation project to fund themselves and ORTLIEB has made a donation towards a winning river conservation project in Germany.
The projects are:
• Conserve and Restore Habitats for Otters, Romania
The aim of this project is to conserve and restore aquatic habitats for otters in a protected area in the Vrancea mountains in the Carpathians of SE Romania by engaging local communities and outdoor enthusiasts.
Nominated by: OutDoor
Chosen in the public vote in conjunction with Alpin Magazin and The Great Outdoors.
• A New Ecotourism in Thailand
The Mahouts Elephant Foundation works with mahouts living in and caring for an 8000-acre protected area of forest, used to release captive elephants back into native habitat. Through this project, a group of 3-4 elephants will be walked 100+km in phases from tourist camps and returned to the forest to join previously released elephants.
Nominated by: Ferrino
Chosen in the public vote in conjunction with Norr Magazin
• Chittagong Hill Tracts Programme, Bangladesh
This project is a sustainable, community-owned conservation initiative that empowers indigenous tribesmen to be stewards of their own unique and endangered ecosystem, heritage and culture. Through the exchange of incentives in a pilot project, the Creative Conservation Alliance has successfully reduced hunting pressure on 15 species by 50% in the last remaining primary tropical forest in Bangladesh.
Nominated by: Ferrino
Chosen in the public vote
• Elephant Monitoring and Anti-poaching (eMAP) – Tsavo, Kenya.
Taita Ranches and Conservancies in the greater Tsavo ecosystem seasonally host the highest concentration of elephants in Kenya and are a popular tourist destination, but also suffer high rates of poaching – with 60% of all poaching in Kenya in 2014 occurring in Tsavo ecosystem. This project, proposed by Tsavo Conservation Group, will deploy a comprehensive, community based elephant monitoring network across the Taita ecosystem.
Nominated by: Chrissy Dorn Business Development Outdoor & Sports
Chosen by EOCA Members
• Restoring the Peatland of the Flow Country, Scotland
RSPB Scotland is working with partners to restore areas of bog in the heart of the Flow Country and EOCA funding will transform 3.64ha of the Dyke plantation by felling the trees and blocking drains, thus raising the water table and allowing the bog to be restored naturally. Within 10-20 years, the area will become a world of amazing wildlife once more, and an essential carbon store, helping to tackle climate change.
Nominated by: Mountain Equipment
Chosen by EOCA Members
• Cleaning up River Mulde, Germany
In 2013, the River Mulde experienced severe flooding. Since the lake’s altitude is the lowest in the region, litter and rubbish picked up by the floods contaminated and remained in the rivers and the lake. During this project, Friends Association Biosphere Reserve Middelelbe will take the lead in organising the local community, a local school and a Junior Rangers event, to clean up the litter along 1-2 km of the River Mulde. www.europarc-deutschland.de
Nominated by: ORTLIEB. Part funded with a donation from ORTLIEB
Chosen by EOCA members
• Cleaning Up the Alps
Obsolete facilities such as barbed wire, live shells, ammunitions, abandoned ski stations and cables are a real plague and danger in the wilderness – for outdoor enthusiasts and wildlife. Since 2002, Mountain Wilderness France (MW) has been working with volunteers to remove them. During this one year project, MW will undertake three separate dismantling and removal operations including, removing barbed wire and other scrap remaining from WW2 in Mercantour National Park and Cerces Massif.
Chosen and funded by: Osprey Europe
• Conservation of Ringed Seals, Lake Saimaa, Finland
The Saimaa ringed seal is a sub species of the ringed seal and was isolated from the Baltic Sea in Lake Saimaa, Finland around 8,000 years ago. The population was reduced drastically at the end of the 19th Century due to bounty hunting and again during the 1960s due to the use of fishing nets made from nylon. The endangered population is around only 360 individuals (2016 figure), and is still threatened by fishing methods, traps and nets used by recreational fishermen, increased tourism and climate change. This project will continue the work of the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation with recreational fishermen, tourism providers and local communities to ensure the survival and protection of the Saimaa ringed seal into the future.
Chosen and funded by: Pomoca
• Mangrove restoration, to Improve Livelihoods, Great Aceh Regency, Indonesia.
The Banda Aceh area is still struggling the after effects of the 2004 tsunami. All of the mangroves were lost, resulting in the loss of habitat for small fish, which in turn has reduced food and income for the villagers. There is no shade from trees for locals or tourists and seawater now comes onto the land making it impossible to grow crops. Through this project, YADESA ACEH aims to address some of these issues by planting 45,000 mangrove seedlings and 400 fruit tree seeds in the Lam Guron area. 80 people will be trained by an expert in mangrove establishment and care, and will in turn supervise 468 families involved in the project. The community has offered up their own private lands in tidal areas to become community land planted with mangroves. Further inland, fruit trees will be planted as a source of income.
Chosen and funded by: KEEN
The European Outdoor Conservation Association is an initiative from the European outdoor industry with the objective of protecting wild areas.
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