Charitable Causes We Support

Save Darfur

The Save Darfur Coalition is an alliance of over 100 faith-based, humanitarian and human rights organizations. Our mission is to raise public awareness and to mobilize an effective unified response to the atrocities that threaten the lives of two million people in the Darfur region. www.savedarfur.org/home - Read more

Giant Steps

Giant Steps is an innovative approach to meeting the needs of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Giant Steps Toronto is a program of therapies and academics for elementary school-aged children in Toronto and York Region. It provides a co-ordination of services to children, families and schools that are unavailable elsewhere. Autism affects as many as 1 in 200 children, with varying degrees of communication, social and sensory disorders. Many children with autism cannot speak and are socially isolated, some needing constant assistance with the most basic life skills. www.giantstepstoronto.ca

Hurricane Katrina

ECON and its portals www.NaturalGasStocks.com and www.OilandGasStocks.com donated $1000 of the fees from featured company BNTNF: OTC to the Red Cross and related organizations towards relief in Louisiana following the recent hurricane.

Greening the Next Generation

Resources for Eco-Awareness and Action

E/The Environmental Magazine, CT - 8 Feb 2006

Greening the Next Generation - Did you ever hear the tale of the wild horses that once fled capture and extinction at the hands of man by descending into the sea and changing form? Wild Heart Ranch Books would like to tell you and your child the story. Wild Heart Ranch founder and author Dawn Van Zant has integrated wildlife conservation into vividly illustrated children's tales of action, adventure and bravery. Three such stories, I Sea Horses: From Sky To Sea, No More Nightmares: A Dream of Freedom and Bradford and the Journey to the Desert of Lop are presently in bookstores. Van Zant's tales fictionalize, yet explain in easily understood and endearing terms, the hardship and demise of America's wild horses. Bradford, a real young boy who suffered from the ravages of Ewing's Sarcoma, goes on a fictional journey to seek out and save the wild Bactrian camel. Each of Van Zant's stories ends with an outline of a related on-going conservation project, from Project Seahorse to the Wild Camel Protection Foundation. Available plush animals can also bring the main characters right to your children's waiting arms. -Shauna Dineen.

Contact: Wild Heart Ranch, (888) 889-9213, www.wildheartranch.com.

The Wild Bactrian Camel - a Critically Endangered Species

There are approximately 350 wild Bactrian camels in the Mongolian Great Gobi Reserve A south of Bayan Toroi and approximately 650 additional camels further south in Xinjiang province, China, living in three isolated and separated pockets. The wild Bactrian camel is an amazing creature that lives in one of the world's harshest environments and in some areas in the absence of fresh water, has adapted to drinking salt water slush which no other mammal can tolerate.

In the Mongolian Gobi its main enemy is the wolf. Further south in China it is the threat from hunters and illegal miners. In the Chinese Gashun Gobi there is no fresh water and this former nuclear test site holds herds of wild camels that have not only adapted to drinking salt water slush, but have also survived over 43 atmospheric nuclear tests.

Samples of skin taken from the remains of dead Bactrian camels have been sent to scientists for genetic DNA testing and in every case, the results have been remarkable. Each skin sample has shown two or three distinct genetic differences to the domestic Bactrian camel and a base variation of three per cent. This answers the charge that the wild camel is a domestic runaway and points to the fact that the wild camel herds are relicts of an original wild stock that man first domesticated over 4000 years ago. Only the wild camels, in the Gashun Gobi in Xinjiang, are completely isolated from domestic camels. This lack of an opportunity to hybridize is what makes their survival so vital. It is these remnant herds that the Wild Camel Protection Foundation is striving to save, by establishing the Lop Nur Wild Camel Nature Reserve.

WILD CAMEL PROTECTION FOUNDATION

The Wild Camel Protection Foundation (WCPF), a UK based charitable foundation with Jane Goodall as its patron, was established in 1997 specifically to protect the critically endangered wild Bactrian camel in its pristine desert environment in the Gobi deserts of China and Mongolia.

Its outstanding achievement is to have raised finance and persuaded the Chinese government to establish a 150,000 square kilometre national Nature Reserve to protect the wild Bactrian camel in Lop Nur, the former nuclear test area of China. The wild Bactrian camel survives in this harsh environment on a salt water slush that no other mammal can tolerate. In addition, the wild Bactrian camel has survived over 40 atmospheric nuclear tests and current scientific research is showing that it has a base genetic make-up which varies from the domestic Bactrian camel by as much as 3 per cent.

Other achievements of the WCPF have been the organizing of a meeting between the vice-Ministers of the Environment of the governments of China and Mongolia, which resulted in the signing of an agreement by both countries to cooperate in wild Bactrian camel protection. In addition, the WCPF is currently involved in establishing a captive wild Bactrian camel breeding programme near the Great Gobi Reserve A, a protected area in Mongolia. This programme had the full backing of the Mongolian government. It is vital as there are only 15 wild Bactrian camels in captivity out of as total of under 800 in the wild.

The WCPF has raised over $250,000 from international trusts and companies and is constantly striving to raise additional finance. In 1999, the National Geographic Society and the Royal Geographical Society financed a WCPF expedition into the Chinese Gobi to survey the wild Bactrian camel population. This resulted in a sighting of 169 wild camels, an enormous achievement.

An environmental, awareness-raising educational programme linked to the new Reserve and Jane Goodall's Roots and Shoots scheme in China and Mongolia has produced awareness-raising booklets both in local languages for schools and adults in both countries and this programme is constantly expanding.

Further details of the work of the WCPF or any of its current programmes can be obtained from.

• John Hare,
• Founder
• The Wild Camel Protection Foundation
• School Farm, Benenden, Kent, TN17 4EU England,
• Tel: 44 (0) 1580 241 132 Fax: 44 (0)1580 240 960
• E-mail: harecamel@aol.com
• Website: http://wildcamels.com

Adopt a Wild Camel today - SPONSORSHIP: CAPTIVE WILD BACTRIAN CAMELS

www.wildcamels.com

Marion Institute - Founded in 1992, the Marion Institute is dedicated to identifying and promoting programs that seek to enhance life for the Earth and its inhabitants. We are committed to uniting people who want to heal the planet - and themselves - by encouraging a deeper understanding of the past, a dynamic experience of the present, and a passionate vision of a healthy future.

ONE: The Campaign to Make Poverty History “WE BELIEVE that in the best American tradition of helping others help themselves, now is the time to join with other countries in a historic pact for compassion and justice to help the poorest people of the world overcome AIDS and extreme poverty. WE RECOGNIZE that a pact including such measures as fair trade, debt relief, fighting corruption and directing additional resources for basic needs – education, health, clean water, food, and care for orphans – would transform the futures and hopes of an entire generation in the poorest countries, at a cost equal to just one percent more of the US budget. WE COMMIT ourselves - one person, one voice, one vote at a time - to make a better, safer world for all.”

Safe Passage

Education is beyond the reach of many of the children living at the Guatemala City garbage dump, as they cannot afford the uniforms, books, supplies and enrollment fee required by the public schools. Together we can make a difference in the lives of the children who need us most. It is my hope that you will join us in these efforts… changing the life of a child at the Guatemala City garbage dump.