Sunday, October 17, 2010

Please vote for Blue Ventures!


Having been a finalist, we remain keenly interested in the BBC Challenge.

This year, one of the finalists is Blue Ventures’ project in Madagascar.
Along with harboring a plethora of endemic species, that country is one of the most biodiverse on the planet – and at the same time, it is a poster child for catastrophic habitat degradation (especially soil erosion due to the unchecked destruction of its forests) leading to rampant extinction and needs all the assistance it can possibly get.

Mind you, Blue Ventures comes across as just one of those volunteer travel orgs.
Too often, I believe, they are mere capitalistic ventures aimed at having kids pay a lot of money for traveling to remote destinations and do bullshit pseudo-research. But here, I get the impression that the volunteer program is genuine and that the cash flow does really go into conservation. What Alisdair Harris has put in place is truly impressive and actually very much reminds me of what we’re doing here.

In fact, it turns out that BV are actively trying to protect Sharks!
Watch this video – excellent stuff! Once again, this is to the point, highly informative and never strays into counter productive melodrama.
Way to go!

Shark Monitoring Madagascar from Jon Slayer on Vimeo.

Please go and vote for Blue Ventures at the BBC World Challenge!

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