One hundred acres of rainforest for one hundred years of Imperial College

Silwood Park students raise money to support conservation in Ecuador - <em>News</em>

Monday 26 February 2007
By Naomi Weston

In celebration of Silwood Park’s Diamond Jubilee and the College’s Centenary year, students on the Silwood Park Campus are raising money to buy 100 acres of rainforest in Ecuador.

The project is coordinated by the charity Rainforest Concern, which promotes the sponsorship of areas of rainforest for permanent protection. Through the charity, an acre of rainforest costs £25, meaning that 100 acres will cost £2,500, which the students plan to raise throughout 2007. Thanks to their fundraising efforts, part of the Choco-Andean Rainforest Corridor in North West Ecuador will become the 'Silwood Park Centenary Reserve'.

Natalie Cooper, a biology postgraduate student, is one of the leading organisers of the project. She explains: "Our acres will form part of a corridor in the rainforest. Corridors have been shown to increase plant species richness and this particular corridor will ensure continuity of forest between the three largest reserves in western Ecuador."

The students are organising a number of fundraising events including Silfest 2007 in June, an outdoors music festival, the Silwood Arts society concert and the Extinction Ball in the autumn."We have already raised money for fifteen acres," says Lizzie Jones, a biology postgraduate, "this is a subject Silwood park students are passionate about as most of us are studying subjects related to animal and plant conservation."

Ecuador is home to the largest number of species per unit area in the world. There are approximately 350 mammal species, 1600 species of bird and 2500 plant species.

For more information please visit the website: Silwood Park Diamond Jubilee

Staff and students can support the project, please contact: Lizzie Jones, elizabeth.jones05@imperial.ac.uk or Natalie Cooper, natalie.cooper04@imperial.ac.uk.

Notes to editors:

Silwood Park is one of the academic campuses of Imperial College London. It is situated near the village of Sunninghill in Ascot in Berkshire and is home to a number of the divisions of Faculty of Natural Sciences. Teaching at Silwood Park is primarily postgraduate. MSc courses and Postgraduate study courses are run at Silwood Park by the Division of Biology and by the Centre for Environmental Policy. The campus is also home to the NERC Centre for Population Biology; the International Pesticide Application Research Centre (IPARC) and the Imperial College Reactor Centre.