The Joanna Toole Ghost Gear Solutions Award announced
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| Joanna Toole Foundation newsletter May ’22 |
| Friends, We don’t over-burden you with mailings so lots to tell you this time round. |
| CONTENTS Jo’s Exmouth Memorial Unveiling Standard Grants 3rd Round The Joanna Toole Ghost Gear Solutions Award 2021 2022 2023 The JTF finances – Fundraising and News Sattao no Longer a Baby GGGI Data Portal And Finally Note: not all the initiatives mentioned in this newsletter are the responsibility of the Foundation. |
| Jo’s Exmouth Memorial Unveiling This is a family project and not a Foundation one and it’s over two years ago that I first told you of our aspirations for this but now it’s in place! The memorial unveiling went off as planned on 5th March and I’ve had lots of appreciative messages. We did Jo proud, it’s been a long haul but a tribute that I could deliver, something that’s actually happened here and now! Here is the link to more photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/jpkNzkr2aHEk9npQ8 |
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| Exmouth Mayor Cllr. Steve Gazzard with Adrian Toole at memorial unveiling. I’m in the JTF hoodie but I shouldn’t have mixed those colours! |
| Standard Grants 3rd Round At the time of writing, our Treasurer Nigel is involved in distributing the grants agreed by your Trustees following the end of our third round of ;’standard’ grants. ‘…The Joanna Toole Foundation are looking to invest in the welfare of endangered wild animals only. The trustees welcome applications for projects that hold the promise of long-term, transformative effects that will contribute to the welfare of the endangered animals into future generations. For the avoidance of doubt, the species to be assisted should be threatened (IUCN Red List ‘Near Threatened – Critically endangered). Wildlife held in captivity may qualify where there is a demonstrative welfare impact. ‘We also asked applicants to consider Climate Change as a possible factor both for the project-outcomes and for their own operations. I have to report that few of the applicants appear to have done so. Rather to my surprise, we attracted 14 applications asking for a total of nearly £140k! All seemed projects worthy of support and the Trustees clearly had a difficult job to do; we asked our panel of advisors, for their opinions, which have been taken into account. We ruled out a number for various reasons, leaving nine applications that the Trustees wanted to support. We did not have enough in the budget to give all nine the amounts they requested so the question was: How much of the budget to offer to each? I contacted all of them and asked whether amounts less than that requested, would be of use to them; either their budgets could be reduced or could they find other donors. In the event all replied in the affirmative and for most of these, we agreed to meet their revised application. In the case of two, we gave only nominal amounts. The final schedule appears below. I would love to give you the details of all but a few will have to suffice for now. |
| Wild Welfare need to re-locate Siti, an endangered Moor Macaque (Macaca maura), who is currently residing in Lok Kawi Wildlife Park in Sabah, Malaysia to the Tasikoki Wildlife Rescue Centre’s Macaque Sanctuary in Sulawesi, the island to which this species is endemic. All other options having been explored and rejected, they need to charter a plane for the trip! https://wildwelfare.org/ The PASA Gorilla project will introduce two critically endangered Western lowland gorillas rescued by Fernan-Vaz Gorilla Project (FVGP) in Gabon into a group of nine gorillas that live on a protected island. Once the social dynamics of the group of eleven gorillas is functioning well, the entire group will be released into the wild, a milestone in saving the species from extinction. / https://gorillasgabon.org/ Dr Byamungu is to run a research project investigating the breeding success of vultures in the Tanzanian Serengeti. These birds provide an essential scavenging service but, in-line with reports that we hear so often about other endangered species, human interference is thought to be adversely affecting their breeding success. |
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| The Joanna Toole Ghost Gear Solutions AwardThe accolade is given to projects that submit the most compelling ways to tackle abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear, also known as ghost gear.2021 I was not able to publicly identify in our last newsletter, the winners of the 2021 round, now administered as a component of Ocean Conservancy’s Small Grants Program, now I can: Two innovative initiatives, which are paving the way to protect our ocean’s wildlife, were selected as the winners of the third annual Joanna Toole Ghost Solutions Award. The combined value of the prize was USD 40,000 which was shared between –The Myanmar Ocean Project http://www.myanmarocean.org/ and The Coastal Restoration Society (CRS). https://www.coastrestore.com/ That was the last year of World Animal Protection’s sponsorship. the Trustees of the Joanna Toole Foundation thank them for their support for Joanna’s legacy.2022The fourth annual round (2022) is already complete and GGGI/Ocean Conservancy have announced NP Junior Rangers Uganda Limited (UJR), a non-profit organisation based in Kampala: https://www.facebook.com/Junior-Rangers-Uganda-104268808201404/ as the winners of this very important award. The funders for this year are the Norwegian Government.In the words of the application:‘ Uganda Junior Ranger’s mission is to stop fishing gear pollution in Lake Victoria and clean up ALDFG from Lake Victoria, Uganda. We want to accomplish this by educating the youth about the impact of this pollution to their aquatic environment and livelihood, and engage local (fishers) communities to take action.’ For more information go to the GGGI Website: https://oceanconservancy.org/blog/2022/05/20/ghost-gear-initiative-small-grants/ 2023 Your Trustees, who have capital set aside for this, are in discussions with GGGI/Ocean Conservancy about our funding for this prize starting next year. |
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| The JTF finances – Fundraising and News I wrote in the last newsletter that the Trustees were deliberating where to invest our capital. Interest rates are so low and inflation so high (I expect you’ve noticed that for yourselves) that we decided to go to the stock market. In the good old days, charity Trustees were allowed to invest only for the best safe returns. That is no longer the case and we can take other factors into consideration. After a lot of deliberation and research, we are prepared to go in for ‘Impact Investing’. A new concept, this is all about making your money work for the very objects to which your charity or you yourself subscribe, indeed for the good of the planet. Other, similar, concepts work largely by excluding certain categories of industry from portfolios; It’s common for example for ‘ESG’ funds to exclude tobacco and arms manufacture. All very well but that doesn’t go far enough for us. We would want Jo to approve of the companies in which we invest. We turned therefore to Tribe Wealth Management https://tribeimpactcapital.com who are ground-breakers in ‘Impact Investing’. Going down this route, we are putting our trust in a ‘Certified B Corporation’ that invests their Clients’ money in activities that deliver the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals only. Those who knew Jo were aware that the degree that she was studying for and that was awarded posthumously, was a Master of Science in Management of Sustainable Development Goals. It is true of course that opportunities to buy investments in animal welfare are few & far between and Tribe strongly recommend Clients to spread the investments over a wide field so we will be leaving it up to them to choose. We did a lot of research and questioning before taking this important step and of course we must have faith that we will be gaining financially. Any of our supporters who would like to investigate this approach for themselves or for the NGOs they support, please get in touch and I’ll make an introduction. |
| Sattao no Longer a BabyRegular readers will be aware of Sattao, the elephant that Jo sponsored on a visit to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust sanctuary in Kenya: https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/orphans/sattao Jo adopted him in 2018. We have a photo of her together with Amparo looking into his stall when he was less than two years old. Sattao is indeed very lucky to be alive and in the care of the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. Your Trustees have continued the adoption subscription and are kept up to date with his progress as a well-behaved five year old All the healthy elephants in their care are given opportunities to join wild herds and we look forward to hearing about that transition. |
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| GGGI Data PortalThe GGGI operate a data portal: https://globalghostgearportal.net/login.phpinto which those of you who are lucky enough to actually spend time close to the water, can yourselves enter data on ALDFN for the benefit of research and other GGGI members. |
| And Finally |
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| Tribute by unknown person at Jo’s memorial |
| Joanna Toole Foundationc/o Chair Adrian Toole31 Egremont Road, Exmouth, Devon, England, EX8 1RX Dedicated telephones:Mobile: ++44 7563 273600Landline:++44 1395 274021 info@joannatoolefoundation.org https://www.joannatoolefoundation.org |