A Rocha International

🎉 Congratulations to A Rocha co-founder Peter Harris on receiving the Goble Foundation’s Freestarter Award!

Freestarters are innovative, entrepreneurial, deeply committed to the well-being of our world, and willing to pursue difficult paths regardless of whether anyone else follows.

Long before creation care became fashionable—or even fully understood—Peter and his late wife Miranda devoted themselves to protecting life on Earth as an expression of their Christian faith. For choosing this path and sticking to it for decades, Peter has been recognized as a Freestarter™.

In honor of Miranda pioneering A Rocha alongside him, Peter is allocating the $10,000 USD award gift to A Rocha International’s the Harris-Naylor Scholarship Fund. This fund supports Christians to be hopeful, effective conservationists through A Rocha’s Conservation Certificate, created in memory of Miranda, as well as Chris and Susana Naylor, who were all dedicated to investing in young leaders.

Enormous thanks to the Goble Foundation for this award, and to Peter Harris for his freestarting spirit! 🌍🌱

🌊 We are thrilled to join the International Coastal Cleanup on 19 September! A Rocha’s PlasticsToolbox offers all the resources you’ll need to join the global effort to fight plastic pollution as an individual, family, group or church.

Visit https://resources.arocha.org/resource/plastics-toolbox/ for resources on science, theology, education and lifestyle related to plastics.

Moths are often overlooked - or even viewed as a nuissance - but they are actually quiet champions of our food security and ecosystem health.

With around 2,800 species identified in Portugal, moths are a key food source for several animals, and they are excellent pollinators of a variety of plants.

Moths are also outstanding bioindicators of ecosystem quality, so scientists study them to assess the impact of climate change and other environmental pressures on habitat health.

Since the 1990s, A ROCHA Portugal has been dedicated to studying and protecting moths, including through their annual ‘Discovering Pollinators’ school project in the Barlavento Algarvio region.

Read more about A Rocha’s work protecting these vital yet under-appreciated insects. ➡️ https://arocha.org/en/small-strange-and-sacred-why-a-rocha-protects-under-appreciated-species/

📸: Photos by Isabel Cunha Soares, A Rocha Portugal

🇵🇹 As traças são muitas vezes ignoradas — ou até vistas como um incómodo — mas são, na verdade, verdadeiras campeãs silenciosas da nossa segurança alimentar e da saúde dos ecossistemas.

Com cerca de 2.800 espécies identificadas em Portugal, as traças são uma fonte de alimento fundamental para vários animais, além de excelentes polinizadoras de uma grande variedade de plantas.

As traças são também excelentes bioindicadoras da qualidade dos ecossistemas, pelo que os cientistas as estudam para avaliar o impacto das alterações climáticas e de outras pressões ambientais na saúde dos habitats.

Desde a década de 1990 que A Rocha Portugal se dedica ao estudo e à proteção das traças, nomeadamente através do projeto escolar anual "À Descoberta dos Polinizadores", na região do Barlavento Algarvio.
Sabe mais sobre o trabalho d'A Rocha na proteção destes insetos tão vitais quanto subestimados ➡️ https://arocha.org/en/small-strange-and-sacred-why-a-rocha-protects-under-appreciated-species/

In a world of rapid change, rangers are on the front lines for nature. 🌍

We are deeply grateful for rangers worldwide - and especially within the A Rocha family - who serve as environmental educators, wildlife protectors, community mobilizers and peacebuilders in critical landscapes.

Take the Dakatcha Woodland in Kenya, for example. Here, A Rocha Kenya trains local scouts to:

🥾 Patrol the woodlands daily
🛑 Prevent illegal deforestation and poaching
📊 Document the area's rich, threatened biodiversity
🤝 Build peace between local communities, pastoralists, and wildlife

This work comes at a very real physical cost. Severe droughts have driven thousands of livestock into protected areas, escalating tensions and risking conflict. Yet, these scouts show up every single day to safeguard the land, wildlife, and local livelihoods.

To the rangers around the world protecting our planet’s future under increasingly harsh conditions: Thank you. 💚 International Ranger Federation

📸 Dakatcha Scouts, A Rocha Kenya

Meet Jeff.

This August, he's taking on one of the world's toughest endurance challenges: swimming the English Channel. 🌊

But this isn't just about reaching the other shore. Every stroke Jeff takes will help support A Rocha's mission to care for God's creation around the world.

Join us as we follow Jeff’s journey across the channel.

Over the coming weeks, we'll be sharing Jeff's motivation and the journey to conquer this incredible challenge. Whether you donate, share the campaign, or simply cheer Jeff on, you'll be helping support A Rocha's work.

Learn more and support the campaign ⤵️

Jeff swims the Channel - A Rocha International Jeff swims the Channel 600 tankers, 200 ferries, two metre high waves, plus jellyfish, seaweed and the occasional plank of wood – these are just a few of the things […]

Good news for coastal communities! While mangrove forests have been disappearing for decades, a new study reveals a hopeful shift: global mangrove regrowth has actually outpaced losses since 2010. This shows that dedicated conservation can reverse the trends of habitat loss and deforestation!

Here’s why mangroves ecosystems are so vital for people and planet:

🐠 They provide habitat to hundreds of marine and land species.
🛑 They trap land-based pollutants and nutrients before they can move offshore.
🎣 They protect coastal communities from extreme weather and sustain local livelihoods.
🌀 They store massive amounts of carbon, making them a powerful nature-based solution to climate change.

From Ghana and Kenya to the Philippies and USA, A Rocha organizations are joining the global effort to help this critical ecosystem flourish. Follow A Rocha International to read more hopeful conservation stories from around the world.

Source: Unexpected expansion and regrowth in Earth’s mangrove forests over the past four decades, Zhang et. al.

📸: A Rocha Kenya