Not strictly rainforest related, I agree. But very much a global issue for us all.

Styrofoam is apparently a $20 billion dollar business in the US (according to TechCrunch writer Erick Schonfeld) but regardless, we end up with masses of it. Land filling it is a nightmare and it probably makes up a disproportional volume of the Pacific Garbage Patch.

What if we could find a green solution to the problem? Well this TED video, presented by Eben Bayer might be the answer.

Whilst not strictly a rainforest story, I wanted to blog about the extinction of the Alaotra Grebe. We have lost a species for ever. Shameful.

Why not read Ade Long (BirdLife International Head of Communications) blog post and the associated comments. This is why we must not allow our habitats to be destroyed be it rainforest or any other habitat that species rely on to survive.

http://www.birdlife.org/community/2010/05/alaotra-grebe-extinction-do-you-care/ is Ades story.

Find out more about Preventing Extinctions at BirdLife Internationals website here

I am writing to ask our key supporters for urgent assistance to help preserve a critical area of rainforest in Costa Rica.

Without intervention, the rapid decline in local species such as the Bellbird will continue.

The Bellbird Biological Corridor

We would like to assist our partner organisation, the Monteverde Conservation League (MCL), with an immediate opportunity to acquire an ecologically critical area of land in the Monteverde region.

MCL already owns and manages the First International Children’s Rainforest, or Bosque Eterno de los Ninos (BEN). This is Costa Rica’s largest private reserve of 22,500 hectares, mostly purchased with funds from the International Children’s Rainforest Charity network over 20 years.

This new addition would be a key part of a larger project to preserve a forested area, to be known as the Bellbird Biological Corridor, which will link the Children’s Eternal Forest? across the Continental Divide to the Gulf of Nicoya on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.

Why your support is important

This area is vital for the survival of many spectacular tropical birds, animals and insects that need to migrate annually from the rainforest on top of the Continental Divide to the food sources available at lower elevations.

Without these forests further down they simply starve. Yet Monteverde’s Pacific slope, with little of its unique forest type represented elsewhere in Costa Rica, is under significant pressure from development for tourism and commercial purposes. Already, some of the Corridor will need significant regeneration.

Many species are under threat, but the most spectacular of these are the Three-Wattled Bellbird, the Resplendent Quetzal and the Tapir.

Populations of the two bird species are declining rapidly. The forest corridor would provide them with an area rich in wild avocado trees, the fruit of which is their principal food source. In return, they spread the avocado seeds, essential for forest regeneration.

An investment for the future

The Bellbird Biological Corridor is a significant project that will require the purchase of many small areas of land to complete the 10,000 hectare territory to be protected.

A number have already been acquired and MCL now has the opportunity to add another 1,300 hectares in 18 sections.

To do so, MCL needs funds immediately. Any donations you make will go directly towards the purchase fund.

Please consider helping us in this endeavour, which will substantially progress the creation and protection of the Bellbird Corridor and the fragile life within – it needs and deserves our support.

Yours sincerely,

Robin Jolliffe (Chairperson)

Find out more about The Monteverde Conservation League in this short movie.

It’s not easy keeping up with history, it changes every, well every second really, so when I started to research Charles Darwins life it came as little surprise to me that there is a great deal of very complicated material out there. After all, discovering and defining the evolution of evolution was never going to be quick.

I was searching for some top level info, I didn’t want to read ‘The Origin of Species’ cover to cover if I am honest, so I was looking for something a little more Twitter and a little less Trinity College.

I found a load of information, so here is my Top 5 links on Mr Darwin for someone with an attention span of, well, of me really. I may have evolved from a knatt. ‘I think.’

So if you want to know about The Beagle, Charles Darwin, The Galapagos Islands and evolution, check these Top 5 for starters

Science News – The man who rocked biology to its core

Short article explaining Darwin in plain english

BBC Science & Environment – 7 short video articles about Darwin

Videos showing Darwin theory and projects celebrating his bi-centenary

New Scientist -Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions

So you thought you knew Evolution?

Amazon – Evolution for Kids (Ok so its not an article!)

Projects you can do to check Darwin was right!

BBC iPlayer – The Tree of Life

Comprehensive, BBC quality, iPlayer documentary about Darwin, by David Attenborough

That should get you started if you need any info for projects on Darwin!

Welcome to the Children’s Tropical Forests (U.K.) website. We are a registered charity dedicated to the protection, conservation and regeneration of the world’s tropical forests by means of education and direct action in the forests themselves. All donations received go direct to our projects with no deduction for administration.

Children are the most readily educated and the most enthusiastic about the forests’ inhabitants. It is our children and our children’s children that will be most affected by the depletion of the world’s tropical forests, in terms of loss of habitat and thereby its resources and by the adverse effects of such loss on the world’s economy, climate and environment.

Children’s Tropical Forests (U.K.) is now a part of an informal international network of children’s charities working together to save what remains of the world’s rainforests. A successful initiative by Swedish school children to buy forest at Monteverde in Costa Rica in 1988 was soon followed by children in the USA, Canada, Great Britain, Germany and Japan resulting in the purchase and protection for successive generations of over 35,000 acres (14,500 hectares) of primary tropical forest. In 1990 this was designated the first International Children’s Rainforest of Costa Rica. Since then there has been successful international co-operation in the field of education and direct access for forests in Thailand, Guatemala, Ecuador and Brazil.

Action by the supporters of CTF (U.K.) both young and old has already achieved the purchase of large tracts of forest within the International Children’s Rainforest Monteverde, Costa Rica and the construction of a protection centre with equipment and education programme at Khao Nor Chuchi, Thailand. We now need urgent support for our initiatives at the Bridge Project (Rincon) Rainforest in Costa Rica, Bilsa in North West Ecuador and Uwasu Rainforest Reserve in Amazonian Brazil.

Will you join with us and with children from around the world in continuing to save rainforests for everyone, now and tomorrow?