May 20, 2005

Celebrate World Environment Day ­ Sunday - June 5 -­ with a Personal Commitment.

Sunday, June 5 is World Environment Day, established in 1972 by the United Nations General Assembly, and celebrated in over 100 countries. It¹s a day for Australians to focus on our own environment and to make a personal commitment to helping save the planet: Earthwatch has over 120 projects that can help YOU make the world a better place.

In Australia, one of Earthwatch's most successful projects has been Australia's Vanishing Frogs, where for the past six years, Earthwatch volunteers have assisted leading conservation scientist, Dr Michael Mahoney, in studying the drastic and mysterious decline in our native amphibians.

It's been said that frogs are the canaries in the coal mine when it comes toclimate change and witnessing the effects of global warming. A recent International Conservation Union (IUCN) assessment of the world's amphibians found that a third of the approximately 4000 species are threatened. Sadly, they found that over 120 species disappeared (presumedextinct) in the past 20 years. Ten of these were in Australia.

The Earthwatch team and Dr Mahoney found both good news and bad: the teams discovered several new species of frogs... unfortunately they were almostimmediately added to the endangered list.

You can help with this ground-breaking critical research by becoming avolunteer on Earthwatch's Australia's Vanishing Frogs expeditions. Volunteers will have the chance to find, catch, weigh, sex, measure and release frogs, and to observe their behaviour and record their calls. Theproject is a bush camping expedition with spare time to look for birds, possums and kangaroos; swim in the river, and sit around the camp fire atnight. It's an ideal way for families to explore the environment together.

Australia's Vanishing Frogs Discovery Weekend project takes place October 7 - 9 and November 18 - 20 and costs $275 for adults and $180 for children(6-12 years). The meeting point is just outside Newcastle, NSW. There arealso week-long projects scheduled for early 2006.

Earthwatch is a not-for-profit organisation that supports conservation research projects by enabling paying volunteers to work alongside scientists, collecting valuable research data. A significant proportion ofall costs goes directly to supporting the research projects.

For further information, contact Earthwatch on 03 9682 6828 orwww.earthwatch.org/australia