Charity Battle VI Goals
Tier 1: $15,000 Conserving the Brazil Nut Corridor in Peru
Most of the world's supply of Brazil nuts comes from the Madre de Dios department of Peru. Because Brazil nut trees are dependent on intact rainforest to complete their life cycle, the Peruvian government has designated family-owned concessions where most extractive activities are limited and the sustainable harvest of Brazil nuts can be maintained. As long as the Brazil nut harvest continues to support the concessionaires who live there, this globally-significant region of the Peruvian Amazon will remain intact.
At the request of local concessionaires, the Alliance for a Sustainable Amazon is working to ensure the sustainability of the Brazil nut harvest and by extension the survival of this essential piece of the Peruvian Amazon. They do this through the Brazil Nut Corridor Project. Participating concessionaires are provided with workshops on the cultivation and planting of Brazil nut seedlings in forest gaps, and those who complete the program receive 80 Brazil nut seedlings for the lands they manage. Transportation assistance is provided when needed to attend the workshops, and concessionaires are given a guidebook created by ASA and a forestry expert in the region as a reference.
This year, ASA is continuing to expand the program, providing workshops for new concessionaires and checking in with participants from last year to see their progress. Wild Green Future has had the pleasure of supporting this excellent community-based conservation project since its start in 2021, and we are excited to provide continued funding through Tier 1 of this year’s Charity Battle.
Tier 1 fully funded by a
generous donation from Angry Birds!
Rhett Barker
Tier 2: $8,690
Enhancing Pollinator Habitats
Habitat loss is one of the greatest threats to biodiversity, and urbanized areas present a huge opportunity to increase connectivity and habitat coverage that wildlife would otherwise lack. Access to nature is also important to humans, most of whom globally now live in cities and suburbs.
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The Daniels Lab at the Florida Museum of Natural History's McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity is working to help with both of these factors by giving out 1,050 native pollinator plants for people in north central Florida to plant in their yards.
The Daniels lab will also give a small reward to any recipients who send in a photograph of their plant, well, planted in their yards!
2024 will be the second year of this initiative, and, with the help of donors like you, the first of Wild Green Future's partnership on it!
Tier 2 fully funded by Wild Green Donors!
Tier 3: $41,000 Staff for the ASA
The Alliance for a Sustainable Amazon (ASA) is working to ensure a secure future for the people and ecosystems of the Peruvian Amazon through collaboration with local communities and research into the ecology and wildlife of the region. They are a young but already accomplished organization, rapidly expanding in both size and impact.
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To help sustain this growth, Tier 3 of this year’s Charity Battle will provide funding to contribute to their staff salaries, allowing ASA to continue expanding their current on-the-ground staff and to contract with a professional grant writer. It takes people power to conserve nature, and these new positions will have an exponential effect on their work, allowing ASA to bring even more capacity, expertise, and funding to their efforts.
Tier 3 fully funded by Wild Green Donors!
Danielle Russell
Tier 4: $18,607
Frosted Elfin Conservation
The frosted elfin is small brown butterfly considered to be rare and declining throughout its geographic range, which ranges from New Hampshire and Wisconsin to Florida. It is likely extirpated in several states and provinces of its former range, and is listed as a species of special concern, threatened, or endangered in 11 states. It occurs in small, localized populations, and its caterpillars specialize in sundial lupine and wild indigo. Extremely vulnerable to habitat destruction and fragmentation, frosted elfin populations have been lost from 7 of the 10 locations in Florida where they were present just since 2017.
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Due to the specie's decline and difficulty dispersing between potential habitats, a strong captive breeding program is needed. The Daniels Lab at the Florida Museum of Natural History's McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity has over 30 years' experience in captive breeding of at-risk taxa, including the Miami Blue Butterfly and Schaus's Swallowtail. Tier 4 will provide funding to allow them to augment their current captive colony of frosted elfin butterflies with new individuals and diverse DNA, as well as to create a comprehensive set of husbandry and breeding best practices for conservationists across the butterfly's range.
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Tier 4 fully funded by Wild Green Donors!
Geena Hill
Tier 5: $33,000 Facilities for Rainforest Conservation
The Alliance for a Sustainable Amazon (ASA) conducts most of its activities from its field station in the Peruvian Amazon, Finca las Piedras. Their location allows them to conduct research in the forest and to interface directly and organically with local communities, but the field station’s capacity to support staff and visiting researchers is limited by the lack of facilities in the region.
To help remedy this limitation, Wild Green Future has worked with ASA to fund the construction of resilient infrastructure, including solar panels, bathroom and shower facilities, and a biodigester for waste treatment.
Tier 5 continues our support for these vital projects by constructing new staff housing, expanded storage facilities, and conducting necessary improvements and maintenance to the dining hall and kitchen buildings and their furnishings.
Tier 5 fully funded by Wild Green Donors!
Danielle Russell
Tier 6: To Ecology and Beyond!
Any funds donated beyond Tier 5 will support further Wild Green Future grants, projects, and initiatives. Learn more about what we've funded in the past at the links below!
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Bernard Dupont