EOCA’s Plastic Free: Mountain To Sea target Smashed!

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The European Outdoor Conservation Association (EOCA) is delighted to announce that, following its latest funding round, it has surpassed its two year target to clear 3000km of habitat, trail and beach of plastic waste and pollution, clearing a total of 4,183km.

300 million tonnes of plastic are produced annually globally, 8 million tonnes of which enter the oceans each year.  80% of marine plastics originates from land sources and is found on mountains, in glaciers, around crags, along and in rivers and lakes, in forests and on coastlines. In all these locations, it impacts disastrously on wildlife and blighting every type of habitat and landscape enjoyed by outdoor enthusiasts.   100,000 marine mammals and 1 million seabirds are killed every year through entanglement or by ingesting plastic litter. (more…)

EOCA’s Online Conservation Fundraiser for Green Friday is now live: Get your favourite outdoor gear AND make a difference!

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The European Outdoor Conservation Association (EOCA), together with 17 of its members are holding an online Green Friday Fundraiser and it is now live!

In advance of Christmas, the online fundraiser enables customers to purchase gifts for themselves and their loved ones, while at the same time, making a difference by raising funds for conservation work around the world.  The money raised will all go towards vital conservation projects supported by EOCA, including the six most recently selected, tackling plastic pollution in the environment and at source, in Spain, Italy, Brazil, Columbia, and the UK.

Eight members have chosen to raise money for the association through actions on their own websites: (more…)

EOCA Funding Announced for New Conservation Projects

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Following a tense few weeks during an online public vote and subsequent members’ vote, the European Outdoor Conservation Association (EOCA) is delighted to announce the newest conservation projects it will be supporting this year.

In line with its current Plastic Free: Mountain to Sea focus and its target to clear 3000km of habitat, trail and beach of plastic waste and pollution, all projects concentrated on the removal of plastic pollution from wild areas, in tandem with education and awareness-raising strategies to change habits and practices to stop it getting there in the first place.   With nearly 44,000 votes cast for the 14 shortlisted projects over a tense two-week period, three projects were chosen by the general public in an online vote, which was also hosted by Mountainblog.eu and Mountainblog.it.  A further three projects were chosen by EOCA members:

Paddling, Cleaning, Teaching, Aprender, Brazil: will raise awareness of the issues of marine plastic pollution amongst local communities and schools as the project travels down the Atlantic Forest Protected Coastal Area on stand up paddleboards!  1000km of beach cleans, activities and events en route will raise awareness and engage 10,000 people to get involved in coastal and marine conservation.

Fishing Plastic: Magdalena River Clean-Up, Fundacion Colombia: This will focus on the cleaning of the main lagoons and beaches in the  Chocó-Magdalena-Tumbes Biodiversity Hotspot, through nine ‘Fishing Plastic’ events over 40km. The project will work with fishing villages to improve waste management,  run workshops for schools, and plant 5,000 trees to benefit local primate species.

Plastic Free Woodlands, Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust, UK: Plastic guards are critical to enabling young trees to survive, yet there are now millions of single-use plastic tree tubes littering the UK landscapes, which are disintegrating and polluting soils and waterways.  This project will remove redundant tree guards over eight hectares for reuse or recycling, engaging communities and volunteers in tackling the problem, and trialing a number of alternatives.

Stop the Alps becoming Plastic Mountains, Italy: The aim of the A⅃ꟼ project is to safeguard high alpine habitat, by working with mountain huts to eliminate single-use plastic items and develop procedures which can then be shared and implemented with other huts.  The project will organise 15 clean-up events to clear 150km of trail and mountain habitat and educate alpine guides, park staff, local schools, and the tourism sector.

Clear the Bay by Day, Morecambe Bay Partnership, UK: Morecambe Bay is the largest intertidal area in the UK, and a national biodiversity hotspot, but an epidemic of personal protective equipment is adding to an ever increasing amount of plastic pollution. The project will work with sporting groups to eliminate single use waste from events and carry out 42 clean ups along 210km of beach, cycleway and trail, involving local groups, visitors, and organisations.

Dos Manos, Save the Med Foundation, Spain: The Balearic Islands are a popular tourist destination and a hotspot for marine biodiversity in the Mediterranean, which is increasingly affected by plastic pollution either through ingestion or entanglement. This project will organise 527km of land and sea clean-ups involving tourists, volunteers, outdoor companies and schools. Workshops will help highlight solutions to plastic pollution issues.

 

Working in collaboration with The North Face, EOCA has also helped find three projects for the company to support through The North Face Explore Fund, which successfully launched in Europe last year.  The 2020 projects are as follows:

Purposeful Adventures, Trash Free Trails, UK: will run 100 clean-up events over 1000km for riders, runners and hikers, involving over 4,000 people during Autumn Litter Watch and Spring Tour de Trash campaigns.

Explore with Purpose, Planet Patrol, Germany: combines 18 litter picking events with water-based adventure activities along rivers and watercourses, encouraging people to get active, whilst simultaneously protecting nature from the harmful effects of litter.

Mountain Clean-Up, Summit Foundation, Italy: will organise 7 clean-up events in mountainous areas of northern Italy, seeking to engage with and educate those taking part about the impact of litter on wildlife and habitats.

A further four projects are being funded by EOCA Summit Members this year:

Conservation of Ringed Seals, Finnish Association for Nature Conservation – this is the fifth year in a row that POMOCA has funded this organisation, to conserve this threatened population of freshwater seals

Cleaning up the Wadden Sea, Stichting Duik de Noordzee Schoon, The Netherlands – funded by KEEN, this project is running diving expeditions to clean up this World Heritage area of the North Sea following the loss of a large number of containers and cargo from the MSC Zoe in 2019.

Fell Care Days 2020, Friends of the Lake District, UK – conservation days to empower communities to look after their local landscapes around the Lake District National Park, funded by Smartwool

The Tarkine Wilderness Project, Bob Brown Foundation, Australia – Ortovox is funding the creation of an app to help promote the value and significance of this wonderful wild area in an effort to protect its forests from logging.

Tanya Bascombe, Joint General Manager of EOCA said, “It is very exciting to be able to announce some good news, despite everything that is going on around the world at the moment.  Each of these projects are undertaking vital conservation work in the fight against the tide of plastic pollution we are all causing, tackling the issues at source and working to stop it getting there in the first place.”

More information on all these projects can be found at this link.

INFO: EOCA

 

 

Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust secures EOCA
funding for Plastic Free Woodlands project

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EOCA finally announced  the winner of the project funding we hosted on Mountainblog.

The IT manager has been checking and ouble-checking the votes and here is the news you have all been patiently waiting for! In the LAND category, there were a total of 7.111 votes and the number of votes for each project were:

  • Plastic Free Woodlands: 2665
  • Stop the ALPS becoming Plastic Mountains: 2150
  • Restoration of Climbing Areas: 1498
  • Clean Cyprus: 798.

Huge congratulations to Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust and its Plastic Free Woodlands project.

The project will remove redundant tree guards, for reuse or recycling and plant 7,000 trees in 5 woodlands to trial alternatives to the plastic tree guard. Find out more about the project here.

A big thank you to everyone who voted, and a special thank you to all the other projects involved and their hard work throughout the vote. We wish them all the best of luck with their projects.

INFO: EOCA

 

EOCA – 2020 Projects: Cast your vote for the environment!

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For the 6th year as a media partner of the European Outdoor Conservation Association EOCA, MountainBlog is very happy to host again the autumn EOCA vote for conservation! This will give our readers the chance to help choose which valuable conservation projects EOCA funds this year.

EOCA is a conservation charity which has 159 member companies that pay an annual membership fee which is spent on conservation work around the world.

During July, EOCA was open for applications for funding from organisations looking to implement valuable conservation projects around the world. They received several applications and e have spent their summer reading through all of these applications, assessing them against the EOCA strict guidelines and have produced a shortlist of the projects which best meet the criteria.

Now these projects need your help! From 00.01 (GMT / CET+1) on 8th October to 12.00 noon (GMT/CET+1) on 22nd October, MountainBlog Europe gives the possibility to read the details of the shortlisted 4 projects. Please, take a minute to read though them, choose your favourite and click to vote for it – it is that simple!

The project with the most votes will get funding to carry out their work so your vote really can make a difference.

LAND PROJECTS
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Young people from six nations will benefit from new #itsgreatoutthere grants

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10 MICRO-GRANTS OF €1.000 AWARDED

The It’s Great Out There Coalition has confirmed the 10 projects that will be supported in the latest round of #itsgreatoutthere grants. Local initiatives in six different countries that mainly involve young people, will each receive €1.000, to help them get new participants active in the outdoors, experiencing activities that include climbing, camping, trekking, adventure racing, orienteering, canyoning, skiing and snowboarding. As well as backing the projects financially, the It’s Great Out There Coalition will also help connect the grant recipients with outdoor organisations that can offer additional support through the provision of specialist kit and expertise.

Launched in 2017 by the It’s Great Out There Coalition, the #itsgreatoutthere grants programme supports community based projects, which take new participants into the outdoors, with a particular focus on younger and more diverse audiences. Any non-profit organisation can apply for an #itsgreatoutthere grant and since they were introduced, they have supported 19 projects, directly benefiting nearly 5,500 people. Following the impact of COVID-19 on the non-profit sector, the coalition, supported by the European Outdoor Group, adapted the scheme in order to support a greater number of smaller projects that would otherwise struggle to get underway.

PROJECTS FROM ALL OF EUROPE TO BENEFIT

Applications for the micro-grants were invited over the summer and the coalition received some strong submissions. After reviewing the proposals, 10 projects were awarded grants, in Germany, Spain, Sweden, France, Serbia and the UK. The initiatives will allow young people from many different backgrounds and some very challenging circumstances to experience outdoor activities for the first time. Full details of the successful projects can be found at this link (see below for a summary of each).

PROFOUND POSITIVE IMPACT FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

Margo de Lange, policy officer at the It’s Great Out There Coalition, comments:

“In July, we teamed up with the European Outdoor Group to launch an urgent call for projects to help get Europe active in the outdoors again after lockdown. This was on the back of our research* that clearly showed that citizens had gained a greater appreciation of the outdoors and an increased desire to explore the natural world once restrictions lifted. By adapting our grants programme, we were able to offer support to more projects that would otherwise struggle to go ahead in the current circumstances. The response has been brilliant. We received some amazing proposals from all over Europe and the micro-grants that we have awarded are going to have a profoundly positive impact for those mainly young people who will benefit, many of whom will be experiencing the hills and mountains for the first time.”

EXTRA SUPPORT FROM IT’S GREAT OUT THERE COALITION MEMBERS

Following the award of the #itsgreatoutthere grants, the It’s Great Out There Coalition is now helping the successful projects to make connections with organisations and individuals in the outdoor industry who may be able to offer additional assistance, through funding or support in kind, such as the provision of kit or expertise. Many coalition members have provided help for grant recipients since the programme was launched in 2017, and have continued to work with the coalition to find suitable projects that meet the overarching objective of the #itsgreatoutthere campaign, to get Europe more active outdoors.

For more information about the #itsgreatoutthere grants programme, visit www.itsgreatoutthere.com/grants.

Click here to read about the 2020 #ITSGREATOUTTHERE Micro-Grants

EOCA Online Conservation Fundraiser Launches Next Week

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With the unfortunate cancellation of OutDoor by ISPO, Europe’s largest outdoor trade fair, at the end of this month, the European Outdoor Conservation Association (EOCA) will, for the first time, run their Conservation Fundraiser online.  An event which would ordinarily be hosted at the show, EOCA have taken the opportunity to launch their first ever online fundraiser on Saturday 27th June.  (more…)

EOCA Open for Summer Funding Applications!

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The new month has brought fresh hope for conservation with the opening of the European Outdoor Conservation Association (EOCA)’s latest funding round. Applications will be accepted until the 30th June and the association is looking specifically for projects involving plastic waste clean up.

In line with its two year Plastic Free: Mountain to Sea campaign, with a target set to clear 3000km of trail, coast, river and mountain from plastic waste, this summer’s funding round is appealing for organisations involved in cleaning habitats from the blight of rubbish to apply for up to €30,000 to help raise awareness of the issue, reduce single use plastic waste at source, and clean up the habitats where it is already causing damage, pollution and threatening wildlife. (more…)

EOCA’s spring funded projects announced

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Following a nail-biting members’ vote, the European Outdoor Conservation Association (EOCA) is delighted to announce three projects which will receive funding from the organisation this Spring.

The rapidly changing global circumstances over the last 2 months unfortunately led to the cancellation of the popular public online vote to help EOCA chose its first funded projects of 2020.  However, following a record number of 120 applications late last year, the members’ private vote went ahead as planned over the last 2 weeks, presenting 6 shortlisted projects all looking for support for their vital conservation work.  Despite lockdown and working from home, the largest number of EOCA members to date got involved in having their say.

The first three projects to be funded this year are: (more…)

COVID-19 – What does it mean for EOCA?

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COVID-19 is having a large effect on every aspect of our lives at the moment, and we are currently working out what that means for EOCA and what we can realistically hope to achieve this year.
See below for the impact which it is going to have on the first of our public votes.  We are also reviewing how many projects we will be able to fund this year, firstly because we are expecting a drop in our own funding, and secondly because the vast majority of our projects work within communities, with support of public events and volunteers to carry out essential work – which will necessarily be postponed for the immediate future.  As so much is impacted by this crisis, and so much is unknown, we will need to regularly  reassess the situation and alter what we do accordingly.

It is thought to be highly likely that this, and many other new viruses introduced to humans, are caused by the ever increasing proximity with which we are getting to wild animals, particularly due to the never-ending destruction of natural habitats. Far from EOCA being a ‘nice to do’, this crisis highlights that the work we fund and the organisations that carry it out are becoming more and more vital … for wildlife, for habitats and for the human race.

See HERE for a thought-provoking article.

INFO: EOCA