Recently in Galapagos Conservation Trust & CDF Category

On 28 January the Charles Darwin Foundation (CDF) presented its 2009 Annual Report and Flagship Initiatives for 2010 at Quito's Botanical Garden. Representatives from major local, national and international institutions were in attendance.

Environment Minister, Marcela Aguinaga, and Dr Lopez

During the event, Dr. J. Gabriel Lopez, CDF's Executive Director, highlighted the foundation's achievements during 2009, as well as the new conservation and development challenges facing Galapagos.

Dr. Lopez reported that as an integral part of facing these challenges, in 2010 the Foundation will further strengthen its three flagship programmes launched in 2009. These include measuring the "human footprint" in the archipelago, better understanding the impacts of climate change in Galapagos to inform decision-making on adaptation, and furthering its comprehensive restoration of Floreana Island at the southern end of the island chain.  Dr Lopez also emphasised the importance of "working in a coordinated manner with Ecuadorean government agencies, academic centres of excellence, local actors, and the private sector for the conservation and sustainable development of Galapagos."

In his address, CDF Board President Pablo Iturralde Barba, brought attention to the importance of the Foundation's volunteer and scholarship programme, through which more than 1,100 young people from Galapagos and continental Ecuador have been trained at different stages of their careers. Many have continued their education, graduating with master's degrees and doctorates, and are now working in high-level positions in Ecuador and abroad.

CDF also launched a new "Partners for Galapagos" campaign that aims to bring together public and private enterprise in support of the organization's vital conservation efforts in the Galapagos archipelago.

2009 was an exceptional year for both GCT and our support for Galapagos and we are delighted to share with you just some of the highlights.

The Darwin celebrations and 50th anniversaries of the Galapagos National Park (GNP) and Charles Darwin Foundation (CDF) created a real opportunity to raise GCT's profile, put Galapagos conservation firmly in the spotlight and so secure much needed funds for conservation in the Islands. With help from our members and supporters we are delighted to tell you that we achieved all three. For more details on the following please click here .

We all know that conservation costs money. That is why our greatest success has to be the 28% increase in the funds we raised to help save Galapagos - over £680,000 in all.

A new £400,000 research fund (in addition to the figure cited above) to create a lasting link between Galapagos and Cambridge University. This was thanks to a highly successful fundraising dinner attended by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, shown here, held at Darwin's alma mater, Christ's College.

A fantastic start for Project Floreana, the first plan to restore an inhabited island in  Galapagos. GCT raised over £150,000 in year one of this five year programme, including close to £50,000 to help save the Floreana Mockingbird, Darwin's inspiration and one of the world's rarest birds. Project Floreana remains one of our priorities for 2010.

We would like to thank every single one of you for helping us make 2009 our best year ever.  With Galapagos still on the list of World Heritage in Danger we cannot afford to stop. Please help us to make 2010 even more successful for Galapagos' long term future, by making a contribution towards our 15th Anniversary Appeal.

The Galapagos National Park Service (GNPS) and the Charles Darwin Foundation (CDF), with support from local and foreign volunteers, have resumed a sea turtle monitoring program that measures a range of data related to the nesting season of this species.

The monitoring process has made it possible to record the number of females who come to deposit their eggs at popular nesting sites throughout the archipelago, assess the reproductive success of the species and its population status. Additionally, the program is observing the effects of human activity on sea turtle populations.

For the past seven years, the CDF has coordinated sea turtle monitoring. The GNP is now leading this process.The Galapagos are one of the main nesting sites of the green turtle Chelonia mydas. The species' survival is being threatened by fishing (the tortoises are often caught as bycatch), egg collection in regions outside Galapagos, and the negative effects of climate change on nesting sites. Global efforts are being made to assist the recovery of this species, and the GNPS is coordinating the conservation of these reptiles in the Galapagos archipelago.

English Heritage is asking people to to help track down Charles Darwin's missing Galapagos notebook which contains the scientist's on-the-spot observations and which would prove invaluable when he was later writing the groundbreaking On the Origin of Species, published 150 years ago today (24 November).

The notebook went missing - it was possibly stolen around the early 1980s from the home of Charles Darwin, Down House in Kent, before the house came under the care of English Heritage.

GCT Ambassador and Charles Darwin's great-great grandson, Randal Keynes, supports the English Heritage appeal. "Our family always felt that the best Darwin material should be at Down House so that the public could see it in his home. The Galapagos notebook is of outstanding value for the history of science. If Darwin had not posed the questions in that notebook, he might never have written On the Origin of Species. The notebook was almost certainly stolen around the 1980s. But I am hopeful that it is only a matter of time before it resurfaces and when it does, it must be returned to English Heritage and Down House."   

GCT has been awarded a highly commended honour for its calendar in the first annual Professional Fundraising magazine's competition for the Charity Calendar of the Year.

Please click here to order GCT's 2010 calendar and see the visually stunning images and design for yourself.

GCT was just pipped by British Heart Foundation's targeted in-memoriam calendar to the top award.

Judges were impressed with the beautiful images used by GCT in its entry, but what made it stand out was the way that the calendar was also used to educate supporters about the work the charity does, and its reminding of supporters of different ways they can support the trust.

Although the Calendar of the Year competition did not initially intend to award highly-commended honours, the quality and quantity of entries forced judges to nominate a list of several high-performing calendars, both overall and in special categories.

Celina Ribeiro, deputy editor of Professional Fundraising and one of a panel of four judges, said: "The breadth of calendar styles and charities represented in the competition was extremely impressive.

"However, while we had no plans initially to release a list of highly commended calendars, the quality of many other entries - either in terms of the way they related the product back to the charity's work, the way they encouraged supporters to get involved or simply because they were exceptionally well-designed - meant that we have had to release an extensive list.

"The Galapagos Conservation Trust calendar was a visually stunning product. Judges, however, were moved to highly commend the entry because not only was it a nice, clean design, but it engaged the trust's supporters in the work of charity and encouraged them to do more to support it.

"Calendars are a very traditional, and often overlooked, part of a charity's fundraising and awareness raising programme, which is why this year Professional Fundraising decided to celebrate the humble calendar by awarding a Charity Calendar of the Year title."