We’re back to conservation for day three of the Big Give Christmas Challenge 2024 with the Thin Green Line Foundation UK.
It’s a sad truth that fundraising takes up about half of most charities’ income and resources. Anything they can do to make fundraising easier means that more money goes to the causes they support.

Thin Green Line Foundation UK
Rangers are the front line of wildlife protection around the world: local men and women who patrol reserves in forests, mountains, steppes and deserts. Endangered species are supposed to be safe in these reserves, but plenty of groups don’t care about the animals or their safety.
Poachers and hunters kill endangered wildlife for food or to sell, with bushmeat worth a lot of money on the international market. Snares for other animals also catch great apes and monkeys, who either die or mutilate themselves to escape.
Illegal loggers and miners cut down forests, poison water supplies and attack indigenous communities who oppose them. Animal traffickers and trophy hunters murder adult animals and take babies for the international pet trade. And militias will kill anyone who poses a threat to their activities — in practice, that’s anyone they don’t like.
Not surprisingly, being a forest ranger is a dangerous job. More than 1,000 rangers have been killed in the past 10 years. Patrols take them deep into harsh territory, often with very basic kit, away from their families for weeks at a time.
They also monitor the wildlife populations, keeping track of numbers and movements, looking for signs of new births and sickness. This puts them on the front line of emerging diseases like ebola. At the same time, they have to avoid passing infections to any wildlife they encounter.
The Thin Green Line Foundation works to support rangers with better equipment and more training. It assists their families and helps them to connect with other rangers. This helps other conservation projects, all over the world.
All images courtesy Thin Green Line Foundation UK