Or how about tracking down the rare Nilgiri Marten and lion-tailed macaque in the jungles of India, before spotting a blue whale in the oceans around Sri Lanka. Or bundu-bashing through the dense forests of China’s Sichuan Province to catch a glimpse of the most cuddly of all beasts, the panda. Imagine doing all this – and more – in just one year!
Enter The Big Mammal Year!
We left university in 2003/2004 with a dream to see as much of the world as possible! We are currently living in South Korea, have backpacked extensively in over 15 countries and lived and worked on four continents, including working as naturalist guides in the Amazon rainforest.
We were originally saving to spend a year visiting many of the world’s wildest places. But rather than making our travels an average round-the-world trip, we want to use the trip to raise funds and awareness for endangered mammals – particularly those that are less well known.
As we are both nature-lovers, and Rich is a part-time wildlife photographer who sells his images all around the world, we thought this trip would be a great way to make a positive difference in the lives of so many animals that are struggling for survival.
For this to work, we will need as much support as possible, no matter how small! We have personally committed to cover all our own travel expenses for the year, thus all money raised will go directly to endangered mammal conservation.
If you or your company would like to sponsor us or know others who might, please help by spreading the word. You can also link to our website from your own or can help us with fundraising by perhaps placing a donations box in your local pub, office or social club! Any other ideas that may help us are most welcome! We’d love to hear from you!
All in all, we hope to raise over $100,000! We initially thought this figure was a little ambitious, but within a couple weeks of launching our website, we had over 1,000 unique visitors from more than 30 countries! If each of those visitors had donated just $10, we would already have $10,000 towards our target. Imagine what could be achieved from now until the end of 2011?
Together we can make a difference to protect our planet’s precious wildlife!
Donations can be made instantly with a credit card at www.giveforward.org/thebigmammalyear or you can get there by clicking the new tab on our website. Please spread the word to anyone who you think might like to donate to save our planet’s animals, even if it’s just $10!
