£13,000.00 Raised for Born Free Anniversary
Of all the many charities Pollyanna worked with and supported throughout her career, undoubtedly the closest and most enduring relationship she had with any organisation was with The Born Free Foundation.
In 1990 Pollyanna was invited to travel to India to sketch and paint Born Free’s rescued tigers and she would go on to would visit Born Free projects in South Africa and Ethiopia, and stage fund-raising exhibitions of the artwork inspired by her visits. She became a close friend of their founder Dame Virginia McKenna, (pictured together above in Pollyanna’s galley), bonding through their shared love of animals and passion for conservation. She created limited edition prints and Christmas cards for the charity, and donated original work to their fund raising auctions. She even went on to paint a life sized lion Sculpture for their Pride in the City event!
From the outset she realised that their aims and ethos were incredibly closely aligned to her own – in particular the fact that alongside their conservation work to ensure the survival of threatened species in the wild and protect natural habitats, they never forgot the individual animal, and were equally dedicated to alleviating individual pain and suffering through their rescue work. She went on to become a much loved patron of the organisation.
To mark forty years of Born Free’s mission to keep wildlife in the wild Anna-Louise curated a very special exhibition in Pollyanna’s gallery including never before seen sketches from her expeditions, and pieces inspired by the remarkable story of Elsa the Lioness.
Through a percentage of sales of paintings in the gallery, prize draw tickets and donations we are delighted to announce that the exhibition raised the wonderful amount of £7,100.00. Further contributions of £1900.00 were given at the Footsteps to Freedom event. We were also delighted to be able to obtain an additional £4000.00 in matched donations through The Green Match Fund, bringing the total mount generated to a wonderful £13,000.00 – more than three times our original target of raising £4000 during the 40th anniversary year.
The Green Match Fund is a platform specifically designed to help environmentally-focused charities like Born Free, by doubling donations made by supporters and fundraising organisations. Our huge thanks go to them, to everyone who visited the exhibition, and especially to our generous clients who donated paintings for sale, or bequeathed them to the Foundation, helping us both to stage this event, and raise this significant amount of funding.
The majority of the grant will be used to help fund Born Free’s Tigers in Crisis Project. Although for most people Born Free are most closely associated with lions, Pollyanna’s connection with the charity began when she travelled to India to paint five tigers rescued from appalling conditions in a roadside circus, and Born Free continue to work to protect these iconic cats. Pollyanna is pictured below with her painting of ‘McKenna’, one of the rescued tigers.
In the past 100 years, 95% of the world’s tigers have been wiped out, and now as few as 4,000 remain. With ever-growing human populations and shrinking habitats, wild tigers are forced to live increasingly close to people, where they may attack livestock for food and retaliatory killings can occur. Tigers are also killed for their fur and for their bones, and the illegal market in body parts gives a dead tiger high value, meaning an ever-present threat from poachers.
But, there is hope – where Born Free have been working in India, tiger numbers have doubled, and the country is now home to 75% of all wild tigers! To survive they need connected forests. Central India has one of the largest areas of remaining viable habitat. Born Free works with a network of local partners to protect tigers and their forest homes, and supports local communities to reduce conflict and potential threats.
With Born Free’s support, these dedicated non-governmental organisations carry out a diverse range of activities including: research and monitoring of tigers; mitigating human-wildlife conflict; running environmental education programmes for communities living alongside tigers; providing basic healthcare to rural communities; lobbying against destructive development projects in tiger habitat; and running alternative livelihood and rural development initiatives.
The partners run several projects to help people develop sustainable livelihoods. For example, a bio-gas initiative provides fuel to homes so people are less reliant on collecting firewood from the forest. This, in turn, helps reduce conflict with tigers and other animals. The partners also run women’s empowerment schemes, such as training women to be tourist guides, and workshops for people to make and sell bamboo products. Born Free also supports a conservation education programme in local schools to teach children about wildlife and coexistence, and a Mobile Health Unit. This Unit regularly visits rural villages so that local people don’t have to travel long distances to visit the hospital. These provide essential services to people and encourage communities to support and participate in conservation of tigers and their habitat.
One of the most recent projects supported by Born Free funding is a stall-feeding project. This project supplies people with fast-growing, highly nutritious green fodder to feed livestock. This means that livestock do not need to be grazed in the forest, where they, and the people looking after them, are extremely vulnerable to attack from tigers. Reducing the need to graze livestock in the forest reduces conflict and increases tolerance for tigers, fostering an environment of coexistence between people and these iconic carnivores.