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The World Land Trust is an international charity which began in 1989 and over the last 20 years it has purchased and protected over 375,000 acres of the planets most threatened and ecologically important habitats.
The World Land Trust protects both reef systems and terrestrial rainforests. These habitats are extremely diverse, but also fragile. The WLT works with partner conservation organisations to ensure the correct conservation plan takes place. A conservation charity aimed at habitat has the added bonus of protecting many, many thousands of species, for generations to come.
Chris Knowles, Interpretation Officer at SWP, recently visited Brazil to search for species in the rainforest alongside the World Land Trust.
"My personal experience of a World Land Trust conservation project in action was at R.E.G.U.A, which is part of the super-threatened Atlantic rainforest of Brazil. This project has surpassed all I expected. To see everybody working with so much passion and determination, reassured me this project was destined to be a growing success."
"I spent a month out in the mountains of R.E.G.U.A and they are truly beautiful. I felt so lucky to be in such a unique rainforest, I kept reminding myself that so many of the plants, invertebrates and lager fauna are endemic and that I would not see anything like them anywhere else in the world."
"I saw incredible things in the forest, reptiles that are rarely seen by man, huge waterfalls, spiders as big as my hand and the occasional group of eco-tourists with rare endemic bird lists!"
"I spent a lot of time looking for and photographing as many species as possible, I took around 3,500 pictures in the month and came across literally hundreds and hundreds of different species. I left feeling like I had stepped into a lost world, a place where most its secrets still hidden."
SWP has donated £6,000 to help WLT protect the Atlantic Rainforest and the species living within it. On 28th July 2009, Shepreth Wildlife Park hosted Rainforest Day, helping to raise awareness for the World Land Trust.
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