Mort, our baby lemur, finally left its mothers tummy recently and climbed on to her back.

Mum celebrating by eating her favourite, the Tamarind fruit.

Photos by Charlie Smith

By Richard Branson. Founder of Virgin Group

In New York for an OceanElders meeting with Queen Noor, Ted Turner, Jean-Michel Cousteau, Silvia A. Earle and others to discuss all aspects of saving our wonderful oceans.

We’ll be looking into areas as diverse as species conservation, bottom trawling, plastic, water levels and biodiversity.

This is our second OceanElders meeting and there is certainly plenty to discuss, from conservation of the Arctic to fundraising for ocean non-profit groups.

Thank you for all of your suggestions for what we should focus our efforts upon. Everyone really can make a difference when it comes to protecting the ocean.

As Jean-Michel says: “By protecting the ocean you are protecting yourself.” It is crucial we do everything we can to conserve the ocean and its wildlife.

By Richard Branson. Founder of Virgin Group

As promised, here are some photos of the gorillas we flew to Gabon, thriving in the African bush.

This baby gorilla is named Waly. Her parents were sadly killed by poachers but now she is thriving at the Aspinall Foundation, who protect some of Africa’s most incredible wildlife.

By Richard Branson. Founder of Virgin Group

We helped reintroduce some baby gorillas into the wild in Africa, where their numbers have dwindled due to poaching. Here are some photos of them on the plane on the way down. We’ll post a photo of the baby six months later in the African bush soon.

By Richard Branson. Founder of Virgin Group

Disturbed to see continuing crisis in poaching of rhinos highlighted by WildAid’s Peter Knights here.  

Incredibly, 448 rhinos were illegally killed in South Africa in 2011 – that’s one killed every 20 hours. With fewer than 5,000 black rhinos left in the world, at this rate every rhino will be gone within ten years.

Demand for rhino horn comes almost entirely from China and Vietnam, where many believe it cures ailments from cancer to hangovers.  It does not. Rhino horn has no medicinal properties. Political, social, and health care leaders in China, Vietnam and other consumer nations need to get this message out urgently.

With rhinos facing possible extinction in a very short time, the complete crackdown on rhino poaching under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) seems to be falling far short.  An emergency meeting of CITES and the countries involved in the trade should support steps including far more severe punishments for traffickers and sellers and more resources for tracking and catching poachers.   

Visit WildAid’s Rhino page now to learn more and donate if you can.

By Richard Branson. Founder of Virgin Group

Two months ago when Donald Trump’s children stood proudly over large animals they’d killed in Africa, their family lost enormous credibility in the world.
How incredibly sad therefore to see the pictures of the king of Spain standing over a dead elephant he’d shot. The world had enormous respect for the king and how sad he doesn’t realise that he’ll get so much more pleasure in seeing animals alive than seeing them dead.

Hopefully he now realises how important it is to set an example to the world, at a time when species are under such threat, from poachers and now kings.

By Richard Branson. Founder of Virgin Group

Another baby lemur born on Necker. Loving Mum, Princess Bea!

By Richard Branson. Founder of Virgin Group

Helped a young lad called Kevin Faulkner try to save conch in the British Virgin Islands recently. Beautiful conch shells have been so overharvested that their very existence is in peril throughout the Caribbean.
I went to Turks and Caicos, where we are looking at ways to protect them by creating pens off the island of Anagada to make it easier for them to breed.
If it works there, we will look into introducing the idea onto other Caribbean islands.

By Richard Branson. Founder of Virgin Group

Delighted to announce a new Kenyan safari camp that will help to protect the Great Migration. We wanted to share how the idea came to fruition.
I was contacted by Jake Grieves Cook, one of our Tourism Partners who also operates Gamewatchers Safaris and is a former Chair of the Kenya Tourism Federation. He told me the Great Migration, which sees one million wildebeest plus hundreds of thousands of zebra, gazelles and other game undertake a 1,600km journey through Tanzania and Kenya, was in danger of being destroyed because the migration passages were being taken over by cattle farming. People were putting fences up and these wonderful creatures were losing their habitat.
The loss of the Great Migration would also effect the Maasai Mara, which is one of the most wonderful game reserves in the world, because all these animals head to the Mara.
Jake came up with an idea that if myself and a number of friends could invest in pieces of the land the migration takes place on, give the Masai employment and pay the Maasai more than they could earn from their cattle farming, it would be a win-win for everybody. We decided to take up a chunk of the land, encourage others to do so and work with the Maasai to create beautiful private reserves that could protect the migration.
Our particular camp, Mahali Mzuri, will be open in 2013. It is stunningly beautiful. We will be employing a lot of the Maasai on it. The elders whose land it was are extremely happy and have moved their cattle elsewhere. Thanks to Jake’s hard work it is looking like the migration is well protected for future generations.
Personally I think the Great Migration is one of the 10 natural wonders of the world, it is absolutely breath-taking to see it happen.

By Richard Branson. Founder of Virgin Group

While in the water off Mexico recently, as well as Manta Rays and Whale Sharks we also ended up swimming with Sailfish.

As you can see the food they were trying to eat (sardines) swarmed around my head and the sword of one of the Sailfish came to less than a centimetre from my face.

The last time swimming with a whale shark was less eventful! Might need to start a Save Richard campaign!

It is amazing to be able to swim with these incredible species all in one day and all within a few hundred yards of each other.

By Richard Branson. Founder of Virgin Group