I'm asking you to sponsor my swim around the Isle of Man in August to help me support Manx Wildlife Trust and Blue Marine Foundation (BLUE) in their vital conservation work.
The Manx Wildlife Trust is the Isle of Man’s leading nature conservation charity. Its members, staff, and volunteers support MWT to protect Manx wildlife by:
· Providing space for wildlife on 24 nature reserves
· Enabling the recovery of native wildlife through conservation projects
· Inspiring people to value nature and getting people actively involved with nature conservation
· Standing up for wildlife in fishing, farming, planning and land management
Manx Wildlife Trust's programmes include:
· Tagging small sharks. One of MWT’s tagged tope made it all the way to the Netherlands, indicating the area over which they need to be protected.
· Carrying out an annual survey of Grey Seals around the Calf of Man, an important breeding area.
· Working to bring back breeding Puffins to the Calf of Man, using model Puffins to persuade real ones to nest there.
· Creating more native woodland every year through the Ramsey Forest project.
BLUE is a UK charity that works to restore healthy oceans. Its focus is combatting overfishing by creating marine reserves, establishing new models of sustainable fishing and restoring marine habitats. BLUE’s aim is to see at least 10% of ocean under protection by 2020, with a long-term aim of 30% protected.
In 2014 BLUE won NGO of the Year in the PEA (People Environment Achievement) Awards in recognition that it was ‘getting results where they matter most’. In 2015 BLUE won four PEA Awards as part of the GB Oceans Coalition including ‘Overall Champion’.
BLUE’s activities include:
· Persuading governments to designate more marine protected areas. BLUE advocates changes in legislation to encourage more sustainable fishing practices.
· Working at the local level to develop best-practice sustainable fisheries that demonstrate how livelihoods and ocean conservation go hand in hand.
· Raising awareness through reports, films, articles, images and presentations. BLUE works tirelessly to draw attention to the crisis in the oceans and demonstrate how it can be solved.
· Bringing together sources of funding, governments and conservation expertise to catalyse the creation of vast marine protected areas.
· Building partnerships with others to bring about change. BLUE works with local regulators, other NGOs, businesses and a range of stakeholders to achieve its goal.
The swim I'm attempting around the Isle of Man is somewhere between 80 and 100 miles, depending on how meandering my course is. I reckon it will take me 20 something days.
I'm doing this in part because I have always loved swimming, above all in the sea, without being especially good at it. Another part of my motivation is that I’d like to get to know the Isle of Man better. It is where my mother and that side of my family, going back over 500 years, are from.
As a kid I would regularly visit the Isle of Man and my earliest experiences of bird-watching were with my grandfather in his boat, around the Island's sea cliffs, caves and rocky bays. Preserving marine and coastal ecosystems like those I intend to swim through around the Isle of Man is something I believe in passionately. I am keen to do whatever I can to assist the most effective organisations working in this field.
