A crowdfunding campaign for the latest edition of a wildlife book series has broken previous records for the project, topping £100,000 in just a few days.
The Remembering Wildlife series has been supported by celebrities such as Michelle Pfeiffer and Queen drummer Roger Taylor and donated almost £1 million to conservation protects safeguarding endangered wild animals.
Award-winning wildlife film maker Gordon Buchanan has written the foreword to Remembering Bears, the seventh and latest book in the project founded by author and photographer Margot Raggett which has already documented elephants, rhinos, lions and cheetahs.
Ms Raggett said: “For over two years, the impact of Covid-19 has affected the whole world and conservation projects have been particularly hard hit, both because many rely on tourist dollars to do their valuable work and the fact that donations from people or companies around the world have slowed down.
“I’m delighted that people are helping to step up and plug the gaps and thrilled that we have raised over £100,000 in less than three days. The more money raised, the more books we can produce and the more conservation projects we can support.
“Our model means that 100% of all profits we make go to conservation, so anyone pledging to the Kickstarter will ultimately be giving to the wildlife we’re protecting and will play a valuable part in helping secure the future of bears around the world.”
The Kickstarter campaign needed to raise a minimum of £20,000 to ensure the book’s publication and hit the target within 25 minutes of launching on April 1. It reached six figures after a few days, with the fundraising still running until May 1.
There are eight species of bear – American black bears, Andean bears, Asiatic black bears, brown bears, giant pandas, polar bears, sloth bears and sun bears – and all feature in the new book, which will be published in October, in images donated once again by many of the world’s best wildlife photographers.
The International Union for Conservation and Nature lists six of the bears as vulnerable or endangered due to pressures ranging from climate change to human-wildlife conflict and even those bears of least concern, such as brown bears, are at risk of being lost for good in certain countries.
Profits from the book will be donated to initiatives ensuring the future of bears and it will feature stunning images donated by 85 of the world’s leading wildlife photographers, including Marsel van Oosten, Art Wolfe, Frans Lanting, Greg du Toit and Daisy Gilardini with. The cover image was taken by Morten Jorgensen.
