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ADOPT A RANGER

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Languages without links have not yet been translated and we are looking for volunteers to help us with the translations.

Nederlands is voor de helft klaar

ADOPT A RANGER

Invites YOU to join the most important movement ever to protect nature and combat climate change at the same time:

  1. Help finance salaries of park rangers for management of national parks, nature reserves and protected areas;

  2. Raise money for "your own park ranger" in your favorite national park;

  3. Offset your carbon emissions;

  4. Slow down the greatest specicide in the history of our planet and save millions of species;

  5. Protect nature and help rural communities at the same time;

  6. Join Adopt A Ranger in the most important effort ever made to rescue nature;

  7. Join the Adopt A Ranger fundraiser incentives programme and receive a reward for your time and effort;

  8. Talk with a ranger on line.

In a nutshell

The United Nations' reported that climate change is leading to global warming, sea level rise and severe weather events. For nature this will have devastating effects and many species of plants and animals will unavoidably disappear forever.  The United Nations has made it very clear that climate change is caused by human actions*.  This makes mankind jointly responsible for the extinction of millions of species, which makes it "a mass specicide**".  There are no scientific prediction models to estimate what percentage of species will disappear due to climate change, but we know it will be a considerable percentage.  Just a few examples:

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Tropical rainforests, the species richest places on earth, are expected to become hotter and dryer, and the millions of species that can't survive in dryer conditions will vanish forever; 

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As sea levels rise, coastal marshes will disappear under water and many species that depend on them will lose large parts of their living space.

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Coral reefs die when exposed to higher temperatures, and if the temperature of the oceans rises permanently, many coral reefs will disappear. In some places, this has already started.

The World Institute for Conservation & Environment, WICE has calculated that between 10 and 12 % of the land, theoretically can protect about 70% of the species of the world. Read more.....

However, less than half of the protected areas in those countries have any field staff at all. Without rangers, these areas become invaded, forests are felled and nature becomes transformed into agricultural fields. It is probably safe to assume that half of the protected areas in developing countries will be converted into agricultural land over the next 20 years or so if they will be left without rangers. This would reduce the world's species to no more than 50%. That would be the situation without the effects of climate change. But it is probably safe to assume that another 10-20% of the world's species will disappear due to climate change. IF both climate change and protected areas transformations take place without measures, we are probably facing a species disappearance of 60-70% during the 21st century, all due to human actions.  This would be the most massive specicide in the history of our planet.  With effective protection, we may be looking at "only" 40 - 50 % species loss.

According to the data of the United Nations Protected Areas database, there are almost one billion (1,000,000,000) ha of protected areas in developing and transition countries; about as much as Brazil and Peru together. If without sufficient rangers, half of those areas would disappear, the forests would disappear in half a billion (500,000,000) ha.  That is more than 100 times of what could be planted as forest plantations over the same period of time, a measure that is promoted under the Kyoto protocol against climate change. Planting new forest easily costs $1,000 - $5,000 per ha and like nature reserves, planted forests need to be protected by rangers, while additionally they need to be managed at least during the first 10 years. Compared to protected areas, forest plantations are small and therefore their cost per ha can be as much as 100 times more expensive than those of natural protected areas. So protecting nature reserves may be several hundred times cheaper than planting new forests, while it is far more effective in preventing CO2 production than forest plantations are in reducing CO2 from the air. Protecting nature reserves helps reduce the onslaught of life on earth, whereas forest plantations contribute very little to species conservation.  If you feel you want to do something that REALLY helps against climate change, you can be sure that adopting a ranger is one of the most effective ways. By adopting a park ranger, you help prevent hundreds of millions of hectares of forest turn into Carbon dioxide (CO2) over the next twenty years, while you help protect the millions of species that would disappear with the forests.  

The world needs to re-focus its conservation aid programmes and refocus its strategy on how to protect nature effectively and reduce the combined effects of the climate change and the conversion of natural lands. We cannot stop climate change, but we can stop the destruction of natural lands in protected areas.  Actually, it is quite easy, affordable and socially beneficial.

WICE has calculated that worldwide about 140,000 park rangers are needed for the protected areas in developing and transition countries. There are no data on how many rangers are employed at the moment, but probably no more than one quarter of the real need. This means that there is a worldwide ranger deficit of 105,000 rangers in the developing and transition countries.

Adopt A Ranger has been created to raise funds for the most imminent danger for nature on earth: national parks and nature reserves without park rangers. Read here why financing rangers is the single most cost effective way to protect nature

We will also work with international donor organizations to make their programmes more effective for conservation and advise international organizations like the International Monitory Fund on how they too can and must contribute to the conservation of life on earth. 

*     Specicide is the deliberate eradication of a species. Knowingly allowing this to happen without making a consorted effort to stop this makes it a mass specicide.

**   There is a growing concern that the emission of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and other so-called greenhouse gasses are the main cause of climate change. While the number of governments and followers of this concern is growing, a considerable number of citizens have raised well documented doubts about the validity of such effect. Adopt A Ranger respects the opinions of both sides and wants to work with everybody, irrespective of his or her opinion on the effects of CO2 on the climate. Click below to read how Adopt A Ranger hopes to unite the concerns of both supporters and opponents of this issue.

  

Read what famous conservationists have to say about park rangers DONATE ** Climate change: Fact of fiction. Read what Adopt A Ranger has to say about it.

You don't feel like browsing through all those web pages? Can't blame you. Download a printable text version of this website in pdf format

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Adopt A Ranger website is part of an integrated net of nature conservation information websites. The following table lists the latest news on those combined websites: 

WHAT'S NEW
January
Shop on line Click here.
October
More than 500 new nature  photos Click here.
Great new indian summer photos of Aspen in Wasatch National Forest.
Completed and corrected lists of al bird species in Français, Deutsch, Nederlands, Español.      
September

We uploaded more than 100 photos on national Parks on our Album Share yours too! Click here

Follow us on Facebook with daily updates
Follow us on Twitter with daily updates
Follow us on LinkedIn with daily updates
April
Free open source ILWIS 3.6 has a brand new images import and export module. Download it now.
Fabulous packing lists for travelers for different kinds of destinations (jungle, mountains, beach, cities, etc.)  and travel types (car, plane, back packing, etc.) To the lists.
Forum entry on travel info, like countless phone numbers and links to airlines, great booking sites, etc, for several countries. Click here
Album entry on the forum where you can upload species of birds, plants, mammals etc. that you want identified. Click here
We made a page on essentials for simple hand-held GPS
December
New countries: Cape Verde, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea  Sao Tome & Principe; Seychelles
Birdlists of all West African countries updates
WICE analyses the conservation status of the Godwit for the World Bank: Wintering grounds of entire population will disappear in Guinea Bissau. Read more.......
Run ILWIS on Linux. Read more...
Nature Worldwide forums heavily spammed and cleaned. Read more......
ILWIS downloads from ILWIS.ORG since initiation surpassed 10.000!
Collaboration with Bo Beolens' famous fatbirder website
New tables for all major countries in South America
April
Updated GIS software review on GIS4BIOLOGISTS
Posting on Natuurlijke Procesgang in de Oostvaarders Plassen (in Dutch)
Posting on effect to oxygen production and carbon fixation by trees and forests
A downloadable pdf with the text of the entire Adopt A Ranger website
A completely renewed computer software and service page with lots of free software
Unsere Deutsche übersetzung von Adopt A Ranger macht gute Vortschritte
March
The data on protected areas have been re-loaded
Updated reviews of free software
US Government kills Yellowstone National Park bisons or buffaloes
February
"Slaughtering of Seals in Namibia": Take a look at a long ignored nature management issue

Fatbirder's Top 500 Birding Websites

 

  * Join our updates on Adopt A Ranger developments on Facebook group "Friends of Adopt A Ranger" or by linking to the profile in the link
  * For your convenience we prepared a text version of this website, which you can download here: Download Adopt A Ranger Webtext
  * With continuously changing exchange rates between Euros and US Dollars, there are some difference between the mentioned values in € and $. We apologize that we can't continuously change the values and use nearby equivalents in rounded off figures.
  * WARNING: Only make payments electronically or by check. Please see our Instructions. Never pay cash to anyone.
*  Contact us by email if you are concerned about the legitimacy of a fundraiser or the appropriateness of the fundraising methods applied.
  * On most pages you will see words in bold that are frequently repeated. These are search words and phrases for the search engines. Please forgive us when they sometimes undermine our text style.  Those words and phrases help other visitors find our website.
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Adopt A Ranger Inc. is incorporated in West Virginia, USA, registered under control number 90701 enjoying exemption of Federal income tax under section 501 (c) (3) and in the Netherlands Stichting Adopt A Ranger under S200823. Disclaimer

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