Watch the video above (6 minutes) to learn about how Animal Works started and join zoologist, Dr Tammie Matson & artist, Nafisa Naomi, on their latest Indian odyssey in search of orphaned elephants.
Animal Works is a registered Australian not for profit association that works with partners around the globe to conserve wildlife. We are a coalition of film makers, authors, artists and conservationists who are passionate about the natural world and determined not to let the world’s most iconic species disappear.
Our mission is to make conservation everybody’s business by spreading the word about the state of the natural world and what we can all do about it. To achieve this, we work to draw attention to the plight of threatened species like orangutans, elephants and whale sharks through visual mediums, striking artworks and the written word. We believe that individuals can make a huge difference in the world by working together. And Animal Works is run entirely by volunteers, so you know that anything you donate is going straight to the animals, not into administration or institutional overheads. We are a small organisation doing all we can to make a big difference.
- On 22nd February, join your favourite African authors over dinner and wine at Ripples Chowder Bay, Sydney to help support the anti-poaching effort in Zimbabwe. Tony Park will be there, as well as Peter Allison, Sally Henderson and Animal Works co-founder, Tammie Matson. It’s the ‘Imagine Africa’ dinner… right here in Australia! Phone Ripples on 02 99603000 to book or email Tammie at tammiekmatson@gmail.com for more information. More details in our blog.
- Animal Works co-founders, zoologist Dr Tammie Matson & artist, Nafisa Naomi have just been to Assam, India in search of the rehabilitated elephants that our supporters helped return to the wild in Manas National Park. It was quite an adventure! Watch the video (above) or read our blog here.
- In just over a year, Nafisa’s elephant and orangutan art combined with your generous elephant adoptions and donations has seen Animal Works raise close to $20,000 for human-elephant conflict projects in Assam, India. Thanks to our wonderful volunteers and supporters who continue to work tirelessly for this vital cause!
- Laptops for Zimbabwe
- Donate here if you can help with the costs of delivering second hand laptops to Humani School in the Save Valley Conservancy. The laptops will be used to teach rural primary school children how to use computers, the children of the gamescouts fighting poaching in the conservancy. We have sent 4 laptops, and 8 more have to go in 2012! For more info check out Tammie’s blog.
Our Main Focus : Human-elephant Conflict
Photo: WWF India
Human-elephant conflict kills thousands of people and elephants across Africa and Asia every year. The root cause of the problem is habitat loss: as there is less space in the wild for elephants, they come more and more into contact with people. Elephants are hit by trains, electrocuted in low hanging power lines, poisoned and shot at. Watch the 3 minute video here (“Elephant Wars”, Animal Media Australia) or read more here. In India today, this is a bigger issue for elephants than poaching.
What is Animal Works doing to help?
One of the special causes we are supporting through Animal Works is the Wildlife Trust of India’s orphanage in Assam, where 12 little elephant orphans, the victims of human-elephant conflict, need our help to make it back to the wild. Meet a few of them and read their stories here. It takes $5000 per year to feed an orphaned elephant milk and depending on how young they are when they’re rescued, they may need to be fed for a couple of years. Click here to help.
Animal Works is also raising funds to help local communities to develop chilli programs to deter elephants from crops. Chillies are a cash crop for people living on the poverty line, and they have the advantage of being unpalatable to elephants, unlike rice paddy which elephants love! Based on ideas developed in Africa by the Elephant Pepper Development Trust, local people are now exploring chilli-based deterrents against elephants like chilli fences and chilli briquettes.
Read more about the growing issue of human-elephant conflict, one of the greatest threats to elephants today here.
