Whether you’re looking to help at a one-off event or trying to incorporate regular volunteering work into your everyday life, here are six green opportunities around Hong Kong that might interest you:

WWF

Focusing on biodiversity, the oceans, wetlands, wildlife and community education, the World Wildlife Fund Hong Kong (WWF) aims to make Hong Kong the region’s most sustainable city.

WWF volunteering applications are always open, with the organisation mainly looking for part-time volunteers to help run their educational tours at Mai Po Nature Reserve. Applicants with a science background are preferred and successful volunteers will need to take a few training sessions before becoming qualified to lead tours.

Sign up to volunteer for WWF here

The Green Earth

The Green Earth was founded in 2016 with the aim of spreading eco-awareness as a core value for all. This charitable organisation is responsible for looking after many of the recycling points that you may have noticed sprouting up throughout Hong Kong in recent years.

The Green Earth runs education seminars, second-hand clothing drives, tree planting and various other eco activities to inform and educate public – and it’s exactly these kinds of events they need volunteers like you to help with!

Sign up to volunteer for The Green Earth here

SPCA Hong Kong

If you’re more of an animal person, how about volunteering for the SPCA Hong Kong? This charitable organisation has been rescuing and taking care of abandoned, sick and injured animals as well as re-homing and de-sexing animals and enforcing animal welfare laws ever since it was founded in Hong Kong, back in 1903.

SPCA are always looking for volunteers for kennel upkeep, animal care and foster parenting sick or injured animals. They also welcome people with other special skills like photography, writing or art to volunteer their talents.

Sign up to volunteer for SPCA here

Hong Kong Cleanup

If you’re sick of seeing beaches filled with rubbish, why not join one of Hong Kong Cleanup’s events? Hong Kong Cleanup was established in 2000 as the city’s first communal cleanup and has evolved into the region’s largest environmental volunteer event – having removed over 10 million kilograms of rubbish from Hong Kong’s shorelines along the way!

You can volunteer to join one of Hong Kong Cleanup’s regular free #TeamSeas Community Cleanup events, part of the world’s largest cleanup initiative organised in partnership with international environmental group Ocean Conservancy. Cleanups are held on various weekends throughout the month – check the calendar for details on the next one.

Sign up to volunteer for Hong Kong Cleanup here

Kadoorie Farm & Botanic Garden

Kadoorie Farm & Botanic Garden (KFBG) is a longstanding Hong Kong institution that was originally founded by the Kadoorie family in 1956 to help farmers in the rural Tai Po area. It’s now a sanctuary for displaced animals and birds not native to Hong Kong, as well as a botanical garden and farm open to the public.

KFBG runs educational tours to raise awareness on ecological and sustainability issues. You can volunteer in various areas including Fauna Conservation to help care for rescued animals; Sustainable Living & Agriculture to work at KFBG’s weekly organic farmers’ market in Central; and Floral Conservation to help with planting, gardening, recording plants and other scientific research.

Sign up to volunteer for KFBG here

Green Power

Founded in 1988, Green Power is a charitable institution that promotes environmental education in Hong Kong. They manage several projects across the city, most notably the Sha Lo Tung Conservation Scheme that aims to preserve the area’s freshwater wetlands and restore its ecological biodiversity.

They also run an urban greening programme to plant more trees around the city, a Butterfly Surveyor scheme to record and protect Hong Kong’s butterfly population, and an annual Green Power Hike to raise funds while encouraging an appreciation of nature.

Sign up to volunteer for Green Power here

See also: 8 Endangered Marine Species In Asia – And How You Can Help

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The newly-discovered primate, known as the Ghostly Monkey, was first spotted in 2020 but was not revealed until now due to the report’s delay. It is named the Popa langur as its main habitat is located on the slopes of the extinct Mount Popa volcano in Myanmar, and is the only mammal included on the revised list.

There are also dozens of new species listed, including reptiles, frogs and newts, fish and 155 plant species, one of which is the only known succulent bamboo species found exclusively in Laos.

The Mekong region, which encompasses Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar, is home to a rich variety of wildlife. Some of its most notable native animals include the Asian elephant, saola – sometimes known as the Asian unicorn – and thousands of other species. According to the WWF, scientists have identified more than 3,000 new species, including the newly discovered, since 1997. 

See also: 10 Most Endangered Species in the World

These reviews compare samples from museum collections and captured images of the animals using camera traps set up in mountain forests to identify key differences between features associated with the newly discovered animals and plants. According to scientists, these will be crucial in determining the range of species living in the wilderness, as well as direct threats to their survival. 

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The Popa langur is a candidate to be listed as “critically endangered” species on the Red List of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), based on estimates that there are only 200-250 individuals left in the wild and across only a handful of locations. 

Currently, more than 38,000 of the 138,000 species threatened with extinction are being tracked by the IUCN, highlighting the dire situation of the current state of the world’s biodiversity. However, the recent new discoveries prove that much of the Greater Mekong is still unexplored, and dozens of new animals, birds and plants are still being found each year. 

Featured image by: Kaung Set Naing

This article was originally written and published by Earth.Org and is republished here as part of an editorial partnership.

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See also: Animals Asia’s Jill Robinson On Compassionate and Conscious Living

The post Good News: Endangered Ghostly Monkey Found in Mekong Region appeared first on 8Shades.

The Tx2 Initiative

Luckily, in November 2010 thanks to the World Wildlife Fund, the 13 “Tiger Countries” including Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Bhutan, Thailand, Indonesia, Laos, Nepal, Myanmar, Malaysia, China, and Russia (countries where you can still find wild tigers) stepped up to recover the species through a landmark initiative called Tx2. The goal? To double the global wild tiger population by 2022, the next lunar Year of the Tiger.

Bringing back a species from the brink of extinction is no simple task. Working across governments, communities and habitats, Tx2 became the largest undertaking ever for the conservation of a single species. With a written commitment from the 13 countries, an action plan was laid out to prioritise reservation efforts in each country, crackdown on poachers and provide financial investment in new science and technology, training and local support to aid in maintaining the current tiger population.

But it’s now 2022 and the true test is here: has Tx2 been able to double the global tiger population?

Has Tx2 achieved its goal?

In some ways, while the answer is not entirely positive, it’s also not without some good news. As of 2020, the wild tiger population is increasing in five countries – India, Nepal, Bhutan, Russia, and China – thanks in part to the work of Tx2.

“From an historic population low in 2010, tigers are finally making a remarkable comeback in much of South Asia, Russia and China,” said Stuart Chapman, leader of WWF’s Tigers Alive Initiative, “And that’s great news for the other threatened species they share their home with, and also the millions of people dependent on these ecosystems.”

Wins and losses

By 2018, Nepal became the first country in the world to double its tiger population from 121 tigers in 2009 to nearly 240 as of November 2021. The Nepali government has its sights set on steadily increasing that number to 250 this year.

In neighbouring India, home to 75% of the world’s tiger population, there have been advances in population increase at specific reserves like the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve in northern India, which went from 25 tigers in 2014 to 65 in 2018. In 2020, the Indian government also announced its progress in reaching the Tx2 target, with 2,967 tigers across the country in 2018, up from 1,411 tigers in 2006.

But at the same time, 2021 marked the deadliest year in a decade for the country, with 126 tiger deaths caused in part by human encroachment onto tiger habitats, poachers and human-animal conflict.

Conservation challenges

In 2010, China had no more than 20 tigers but breeding efforts and the support of the government and local communities seem to be attributable to a slow rise in population, including the rare sighting of a tigress and her cubs, first captured at the Jilin Wangqing Nature Reserve in 2014.

Unfortunately, Southeast Asia remains a troubling place for wild tigers – they are thought to be virtually extinct now in three of the tiger range countries: Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. While tigers do exist in these countries, they are generally kept in captivity through private zoos and farms.

The lack of tiger conservation and new breeding has become a shortfall for the Tx2 goal considering the tiger population as of 2021 is now close to 3,900 – quite a bit aways from the goal to globally double the number of wild tigers in 2010, when it was 3,200.

Tx2 Criticisms

Additionally, the World Wildlife Federation came under scrutiny by the tiger biologists from the Wild Conservation Society who not only seriously doubted the methodologies used to calculate tiger population growth, but the ecological changes that would come about from a vast increase in global tiger numbers.

“Rather than engaging in these tiger number games that distract them from reality, conservationists must now focus on enhancing and expanding recovery and monitoring of source populations,” wrote Dr. K. Ullas Karanth, the former Director of Wildlife Conservation Society in Asia, in 2016 in a statement of concern regarding the WWF’s efforts to create a large campaign around Tx2.

What remains clear is that the preservation of wild tigers faces insurmountable challenges, from rampant poaching to continuous habitat destruction . More than beautiful and magnificent animals, wild tigers contribute in major ways to the greater ecosystem and the diminishment of their species is a detriment to the world at large.

See also: 10 Most Endangered Species in the World

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