Well I think I found the perfect Christmas gifts. I’m going to donate my hard-earned cash in other peoples names to an organization that is working to protect the oceans and all those cool fish, squid and octopi that we all love to look at and sing about and which may have the cure for whatever disease you have but sadly due to our penchant for eating prawns and shark fin soup may be extinct before we discover it.
Option one:
The World Wildlife Fund has a number of Wildlife and Wild Space adoptions that come with cuddly toys for the kids. Personally I’m going to be buying the Adopt Our Oceans package with comes with a photograph. Each package is $40.
UPDATE! You can donate without a goodie in honor of someone else in ANY AMOUNT! See https://secure.wwf.ca/HowYouCanHelp/Donate/DonateForm.asp?appeal=IH101
Option two:
The Center for Ecosystem Survival has a few packages – you can send coffee or chocolates along with up to a full acre or rainforests and coral reefs in Palau. $25, or $50 packages are in my range. You can also forgo the goodies and just put the money towards reefs in the Dominican Republic or Komodo National Park in Indonesia.
UPDATE: Their ordering page is not secure!
Option three:
This one has no material goodies to go with it, which suits me fine. Oceana is working on stopping bottom trawling (as mentioned in the Thickets song “A Marine Biologist”) and saving sharks, among other fishy things, and you can donate in packages of $20, $35 or $50
UPDATE: Doesn’t seem to like Canadian currency – am waiting to hear back from them how to handle this.
If anybody doesn’t want to use their credit card online but wants to donate to one of these options I’ll happily take your cash and use my card and do the appropriate typing and clicking.
Why not donate to a local group that deals with local issues??
http://www.livingoceans.org/index.shtml
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/
http://cpaws.org/
Just don’t donate any money in my name to save those snotty European eels. They deserve their commuppance.