World Land Trust (WLT), the international conservation charity, is putting the spotlight on big cats during Big Cat Big Match Fortnight in October. 

During the first two weeks of October, donations to WLT's Big Cat Appeal will be matched pound for pound. With £250,000 already pledged for the match funding pot, WLT aims to raise £500,000 for conservation projects that are saving and protecting habitat for big cats. 

Celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2014, WLT has an impressive track record and has saved more than 500,000 acres of critically threatened habitat that would otherwise have been lost. WLT works in 20 countries and the reserves that have been created support the territory of a variety of big cats, many of which are on the brink of extinction in the wild. WLT is urgently raising money to save and protect larger areas of habitat to ensure the survival of far ranging species such as Tiger, Puma and Jaguar. 

WLT's conservation model is based on purchasing and protecting areas of threatened habitat in partnership with overseas project partners, in order to conserve endangered species and biodiversity. This landscape level approach is perfectly suited to conserving big cats: at the top of the food chain, big cats are territorial, requiring large areas of wild habitat, plentiful prey and, crucially, protection from those who would hunt them for skins, body parts and sport.  

John Burton, WLT Chief Executive, said: “After 25 years of conservation success in countries as diverse as Belize, Paraguay and India, we know that WLT's model of land purchase and protection is making it possible for big cats to survive in the wild in Latin America and Asia. We aim to raise £500,000 during Big Cat Big Match so that we can continue to support big cat conservation in countries where we already have programmes and in other parts of the world such as Iran and Vietnam, where we are developing exciting new partnerships.” 

Big Cat Big Match funds will be used strategically to allow WLT's worldwide partners to extend existing reserves and to create wildlife corridors between protected areas. Funds will also be used to support WLT's Keepers of the Wild programme, which supports the employment of wildlife rangers in reserves created with funding from WLT, all of whom are ensuring the safety of big cats in their reserves.                                       

For more information on World Land Trust, visit www.worldlandtrust.org 

[ENDS] 

For more information please contact:

McCluskey International

Judy McCluskey / Sarah Salord / Jessica Meins

T: 020 8747 2170 E: worldlandtrust@mccluskey.co.uk

About World Land Trust (WLT)

World Land Trust (WLT) is an international conservation charity, which protects the world's most biologically important and threatened habitats acre by acre. Since its foundation in 1989, WLT has funded partner organisations around the world to create reserves, and give permanent protection to habitats and wildlife. The mission of the World Land Trust is: To protect and sustainably manage natural ecosystems of the world; To conserve their biodiversity, with emphasis on threatened habitats and endangered species; To develop partnerships with local individuals, communities and organisations to engage support and commitment among the people who live in project areas; To raise awareness, in the UK and elsewhere, of the need for conservation, to improve understanding and generate support through education, information and fundraising.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

World Land Trustis an international conservation charity that raises funds for the purchase and protection of critically threatened tropical forests and other vital wildlife habitats. The Trust has its headquarters in Halesworth in Suffolk. Its patrons are Sir David Attenborough, David Gower & Chris Packham. Registered charity number 1001291.

World Land Trust's big cat conservation success

The Trust's founding project was launched in 1989 in the Rio Bravo area of Belize, where thanks to WLT 110,000 acres of rainforest were saved from development.  Today, the highest density of Jaguars in Belize are found in the Rio Bravo Conservation Management Area, which now measures more than 250,000 acres (4 per cent of Belize's land mass). 

Jaguars are also increasing in reserves in Paraguay's Chaco-Pantanal, where WLT has supported conservation for the past decade, and in Mexico's Sierra Gorda, where WLT has funded land purchase since 2007. Further south, Pumas are once again thriving in Guapi Assu Reserve in the Atlantic forest of Brazil, supported by WLT since 2005. And, at the tip of the South American continent, signs of Pumas are being found regularly at  Estancia la Esperanza, a 15,000 acre reserve which WLT helped create in Patagonia in the early 2000s. 

In Asia, since 2003, WLT has supported Wildlife Trust of India in protecting wildlife corridors used by Bengal Tigers. More recently, since 2010 WLT has been funding habitat protection programmes in the South Caucasus in order to provide a safe haven for the endangered Caucasian Leopard. In 2012, camera-traps supplied by WLT recorded the first images of a Caucasian Leopard in Armenia since 2007.

Big Match Fortnight 2013

 In 2013, WLT's Big Match Fortnight raised £725,000 to create the Keruak Corridor for Orang-utans in the rainforest of Malaysian Borneo in partnership with Hutan an NGO based in Kinabatangan. 

Big Cat Big Match Launch

World Land Trust will be launching Big Cat Big Match Fortnight in the lecture theatre of the Linnean Society of London on Tuesday 30 September. 

Special guests at the launch will be available for interview prior to the event: Vivek Menon, Executive Director of Wildlife Trust of India, Dr Isabelle Lackman, Co-Director of Hutan, and Mahboobeh Shirkhorshdi representing Iranian Cheetah Society. More details of the event. 

The event is free to members of the public, but tickets are needed as places are limited. To request a ticket, members of the public should contact Viv Burton, WLT Head of Communications, vburton@worldlandtrust.org  or call (01986) 874422.