Hello Very Generous Kind Heartrd Nice Friends and Family!!!
(I can be cheesy, as now you got this far it means you intend to donate! )
As you know I will be travelling to Damaraland in Namibia for a 10 day cycle across the vast red rock desert landscape. The area is home to black rhino, elephant, lion, and a wealth of other game species uniquely adapted to survive the world's most ancient desert, the Namib. We are doing this in aid of Rhino conservation.
In the mid 1980s, a savage slaughter of wildlife, particularly the black rhino which suffered a catastrophic 98% decline throughout Africa, was taking place in Namibia. The world's last remaining population of desert-adapted rhino, together with the desert elephant, was facing extinction because of loss of habitat and poaching for their horns (for two reasons only - to make handles for ornamental daggers and as a Far Eastern remedy to reduce fever and erectile malfunction) Rhino numbers were reduced to approximately 30 animals in the beautiful, remote landscape of Damaraland and Kunene province.
By saving these rhinos, we also help save many other species and the incredible landscape they inhabit. From this bike ride David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation (DSWF) will also be supporting the tribal communities as well as greatly increasing local employment in an area of abject poverty.
Even if saving rhinos is not your thing, please do support me in what will prove to be (if you know me) a truly miraculous event, Francesca doing excercise all day, for 10 days in the Desert, no pizza express in site!
Please give generously to save one of the world's last surviving truly wild populations of black rhinos and other wildlife living in the planet's oldest desert.
Many thanks for your support.
Love
Franks/Chess
PS
No amount of money will convince me to wear lycra....Fact
