Honeyguide’s conservation donations in 2023 totalled £4515. This blog is mostly to give news on the most recent donations, in autumn 2023, as well as the running total.
Cove at Binidali, Menorca, October 2023 (Chris Gibson).
Our October holiday on Menorca – as for all our Menorca holidays over nearly 30 years – supported The Grup Balear d'Ornitologia i Defensa de la Naturalesa (the Balearic Ornithological Group) – GOB Menorca for short. Our donation was £610, which includes Gift Aid and an additional donation.
A nice element while we are on Menorca is direct contact with GOB Menorca. I saw this at first hand in October 2023, and it was the same for the group with Chris Gibson in October 2023. Carlos Coll, President of GOB Menorca, came to our base Matxani Gran along with Charlotte from GOB’s Farm Stewardship programme.
Carlos wrote to me to say:
“We had a wonderful evening with a really interesting group of
Honeyguiders. Charlotte spoke about the team she forms part of and explained
our Farm Stewardship programme which is growing every year.
At present this programme has become a bit of a flag-ship and has created interest in many areas in and out of Spain. This time last year we were invited to visit a NGO in Libano who are developing a land stewardship programme and we came home filled with enthusiasm and very impressed with how they are making such a difference both agriculturally and socially. Sharing good practice is so important.
Thank you so much for Honeyguide’s very generous gift to GOB. Donations enable us to continue with our all important work in creating opportunities and balancing progress with sustainability. We are enormously grateful.
I do hope you will be able to visit Menorca again and allow us to show you how GOB is making a difference.
Also in October, we sent also £100 to Norfolk Wildlife Trust after our North Norfolk break with Rob Lucking.
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| Wells Harbour, north Norfolk, October 2023. |
Usually, donations are sent after holidays have run, just in case something happens – learnt from the experience of air traffic control issues in France. However, for Algarve and Alentejo in Portugal this November, we made an exception. In Portugal we lean on the advice of Domingos Leitão for the choice of project to support: Domingos is both Executive Director of SPEA (BirdLife Portugal) and our guide this year.
In 2023 we will be a sponsor of the 11th Congress of Ornithology of SPEA, 22-26 November, in Ponta Delgada University (Azores). This is a major science and conservation event that SPEA used to organise every third year. The last time, the 10th, was in 2018, and because of the pandemic, the 11th was postponed to this year. More on: https://spea.pt/congresso-de-ornitologia-2023/. In view of the dates, it made sense to commit early to this, and the sponsorship – with others – shows on the website of the congress. With the benefit some unrestricted funds in hand as well as knowing what November’s group will contribute, the trustees of the Honeyguide Charitable Trust agreed to send €1000 (£886) to SPEA.
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| Honeyguide donation to SPEA for 11th Congress of Ornithology. |
Other donations in 2023:
February: £175
to Norfolk
Wildlife Trust, linked to Honeyguide local walks.
March: £630 to GREPOM (BirdLife Morocco) linked
to our Morocco holiday and £290 to SEO (BirdLife Spain) linked to our Extremadura
holiday.
April: £430 to
the Hellenic Ornithological Group (BirdLife Greece) linked to our Crete
holiday.
May: £290 to
BirdLife Salamanca for harrier protection, linked to our South of Salamance
holiday.
June: £820 to
Zerynthia, an NGO working to conserve butterflies in Spain, linked to our Picos
de Europa holiday.
July: £190 to
the RSPB on Mull, from our Mull group.
August: £94 to Norfolk Wildlife Trust,
from a Honeyguide
local walk at Hickling nature reserve.
Part of the ethos of Honeyguide Wildlife Holidays has always been to contribute to the protection of the wildlife that we enjoy, put into effect by donations to conservation projects and organisations linked to our activities. These donations are usually via the Honeyguide Wildlife Charitable Trust, through which we can claim Gift Aid and increase our charitable activity.
Adding this year’s donations of £4515 to the previous total gives a running total of £149,797 donated to nature conservation since Honeyguide started in 1991.
Chris Durdin
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