Courtesy of UNEP
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Twelve African national football teams—four at the World Cup—are using their spots on the playing field to help promote the International Year of Biodiversity.
It's all part of a campaign designed by UNEP and PUMA. World Cup qualifiers Algeria, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana and eight other PUMA-sponsored African teams are wearing "Africa Unity Kits" during the summer games to promote awareness of biodiversity. Copies of the Unity Kit are being sold along with Unity-Tees and PUMA "Lacelets" to raise money for conservation programs in Africa—a vote on Facebook will determine which three causes will benefit.
Cameroon captain Samuel Eto'o has been a vocal part of the campaign, as have other big names including Didier Drogba and Djimon Hounsou. The campaign's website explains the reason for ramping up the focus on Africa:
[the] continent hosts exceptional biodiversity including two of the five most important wilderness areas on Earth – the Congo Basin, and Miombo-Mopane Woodlands and Savannas of Southern Africa. Nine of the planet’s 35 Biodiversity hotspots, the richest and most threatened reservoirs of plant and animal life on Earth, are also in Africa.Anyone can vote among the six programs nominated by UNEP and PUMA—proceeds will support the three groups with the most votes.
The nominees focus on the following six issues: elephants in Ivory Coast and Liberia, community conservation for gorillas, rhino conservation (black and white rhinos are both highly threatened), endangered lions, the migration route for wildebeest and zebra, or forest and biodiversity conservation in DRC.
So go on and cast your vote on Facebook, and be sure to do so by July 11.
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