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Supporting Asia’s big cat guardians

By 13th April 2023April 22nd, 2023Blog, News

Taking care of the ordinary so they can be extraordinary – supporting Asia’s big cat guardians.

For the second year in a row, we are excited to be participating in the Green Match Fund – a week of fundraising for the future of our planet! All the donations we receive from NOW until the 27th of April will be automatically DOUBLED. This means you can have twice as much impact, at no extra cost to you! This is our biggest fundraiser of the year and we’re hoping to raise £15k which will be doubled to £30k with your help. Just follow the link below, enter your donation amount and it will be automatically matched!

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Where will your donation go?

For wildlife conservationists, whether scientists, educators, or rangers, it’s the ordinary items keeping them safe, healthy, and effective that are often underfunded. Conservation projects are heavily reliant on restricted funds from large funding bodies that have little interest in subsidising everyday objects. Often funds are allocated to management interventions with the aim of taking ownership of large-scale impactful outcomes leaving a gap in funding for the day-to-day running of conservation activities.

Staff need everyday items, such as boots, batteries, fuel, tires, first aid kits, office equipment, and cooking tools to increase their effectiveness and keep them safe. The ordinary and extraordinary are not opposed, rather it is these common items that keep big cat guardians safe, help promote human-wildlife coexistence and enable field research to establish conditions where wild tigers and Amur leopards thrive. The extraordinary conservationists working across Asia remind us to look beyond the megafauna we are protecting to see the depths and dimensions of everyday existence that make these conservation sucesses happen.

Double your donation today >
Collecting clean drinking water while on patrol

Collecting clean drinking water while on patrol ©Freeland

Big cat caretakers are navigating both dangerous landscapes and eroding living standards

Feeling the pinch from the cost-of-living crisis? You’re not the only one, this is a global phenomenon which could have an apocalyptic impact for those in the developing world. According to the IUCN, fewer than 4,000 tigers remain in the wild and they are found mainly in regions whose standard of living remain more or less below average. While many of us are navigating this financial crisis from relative comfort, numerous big cat caretakers are traversing dangerous landscapes in Asia while also navigating eroding living standards. Their pursuit of protecting the worlds remaining wild megafauna should not be hampered by the rising cost of everyday items which make their job easier. Ensuring the survival of big cats in the wild is not a responsibility they should shoulder alone. We are collectively accountable for global biodiversity and must support those working on the frontier of endangered species protection as the global economy takes a battering. These conservationist act as human lighthouses, beacons of hope for so many declining species.

Conservationists from WildCats projects ©ZSL and ©Freeland

How can we keep these human lighthouses shining?

We’re working with the Big Give to DOUBLE your donation so you can DOUBLE your impact for one week of green giving to keep these lighthouses shining. How does it work? Donate to WildCats through the BigGive platform and they’ll match your donation. Simple. So go green between 20th – 27th April and double-down on making a difference.