Great Barrier relief

This year we built on the success of our recent efforts to protect Virunga National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site, from the threat of oil exploitation. We supported a global WWF campaign for increased protection of another iconic World Heritage site – Australia’s Great Barrier Reef – against industrial destruction. Thanks to support from more than half a million people, we’ve managed to secure a ban on dredge spoil from being dumped in the waters of the reef. This law closes for good a legal loophole that could have allowed 46 million cubic metres of seabed to be dug up and dumped in this fragile ecosystem. In a significant conservation victory, the new Sustainable Ports Development Bill extends protection to the whole World Heritage site. The reef is home to almost 6,000 species. Our video shows a snippet of what life on the reef is like for one of them: a green turtle.

Rainforest rescue

Our successful public campaign with Sky, to keep one billion trees standing in the Amazon, ended in 2015. Over the last six years, the funds raised under the Sky Rainforest Rescue partnership have enabled us to work with more than 1,500 small-scale farmers in Acre state in the Brazilian Amazon on sustainable agriculture, and to boost the livelihoods for families that sustainably harvest forest products such as acai berries and wild rubber. As a result, farmers’ incomes there have increased. What’s more, 3.7 million tonnes of carbon emissions will have been avoided during the partnership. Our schools programme in Acre also raised environmental awareness among the next generation of its farmers. We’ll continue our work in this part of the Amazon to help safeguard the rainforest.

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Ocean blues

We launched our Living Blue Planet Report in 2015. It highlights the disturbing fact that the average population size of marine vertebrates has nearly halved since 1970 – owing largely to overfishing, climate change and damage to habitat. The findings are based on data gathered by tracking nearly 6,000 populations of 1,234 marine species – from sea birds to sharks to leatherback turtles. The report shows that some populations of sealife have benefited from better management and protection following big declines in the ’70s and ’80s. But the overall trend continues to decline. It was a timely reminder that the actions we take now are critical if our oceans are to be resilient in the long term. We made the most of the media interest around the launch of the report to call for increased momentum on the world meeting its commitments to establish marine protected areas, as well as getting a strong climate deal in Paris.

Robot recce

In an exciting new venture with the National Oceanography Centre, we’re using marine robots to explore wildlife hotspots in UK seas. Together, we launched an ‘autonomous surface vehicle’ (fondly known as Thomas) and a submarine glider. In August the glider explored the Celtic Deep, off the south-west coast of Wales. It’s a haven for marine mammals such as common dolphins, harbour porpoises and even the world’s second-biggest animal, the fin whale. Next, we’ll investigate another area that’s rich in marine life, near the Isles of Scilly. Thomas will have GoPro cameras, sensors and other instruments to detect underwater noises and collect information such as the temperature and the density of plankton. The results will give us a better understanding of the importance of such hotspots to marine wildlife.

Amazon millions

Six new protected areas were added to the world’s largest tropical forest conservation programme this year. The success means the Amazon Regional Protected Areas (ARPA) programme, which we helped the Brazilian government to launch in 2002, now supports the protection of an incredible 59.3 million hectares of Amazon rainforest. That’s 99% of the programme’s original ambitious goal. The ARPA programme now includes 111 areas of rainforest that are either strictly protected or are managed for sustainable use. A new decree from Brazil’s president has also confirmed a plan that’ll sustain the financing of ARPA sites in the long term. That’s essential, as maintaining land across such a vast area leads to significant costs. The fund for this was boosted this year by $33m from the German government.

Treetop triumph

Here’s a wonderful video featuring a collection of orang-utans in one of the reserves in Sabah (north-east Borneo) where we’re working to restore forest cover so it offers better habitat for wildlife. We’ve supported aerial nest count surveys to map where the orang-utans are. The results have helped us advocate for more forests to be restored and protected. Last year, the Sabah Forestry Department set aside a further 220,000 hectares of forest for protection, increasing the total protected area to 1.78m hectares. For years, we’ve been working with the forestry department to conserve Sabah’s rich forests, which are home to orang-utans, clouded leopards and pygmy elephants. About 24% of Sabah’s land area is now protected, and the government plans to increase this to 30% over the next five years, reconnecting more areas of forest.